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<\/p>\n\u201cWhen I saw the final cost I had the same reaction as most Australians: disbelief,\u201d Flint told this masthead. \u201cThere are 30 years of research on weather interfaces. You don\u2019t need to reinvent anything.<\/p>\n
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Ben Flint, founder of Melbourne-based Supernormal Systems. \u201cWhen I saw the final cost I had the same reaction as most Australians: disbelief.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat kind of budget should buy you something users actually like; that\u2019s easier to use than what it replaced, not harder. If I delivered a project 23 times the quoted price, my reputation would be ruined.\u201d<\/p>\n
Geo George, co-founder of Mayfly Ventures and a product designer who has previously delivered a $21 million government project, said even accounting for the full scope of a back-end rebuild, the cost did not add up.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven with five to 10 years of work, 30 to 60 specialists, infrastructure, security, testing, cloud, compliance and procurement overhead, a serious rebuild of a web plus API platform should land in the low to mid-tens of millions,\u201d George said.<\/p>\n
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\u201c$96 million is far beyond that. It suggests scope creep, gold plating, inefficient vendor delivery and governance models that reward process over outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
George said the project appeared to have become \u201ca machine built to justify itself instead of a product built to serve people\u201d.<\/p>\n
A spokeswoman for the bureau said the website redevelopment was \u201cpart of a large program of work to improve the long-term security, stability and resilience of critical Bureau services.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA complete rebuild was necessary to ensure the website meets modern security, usability and accessibility requirements for the millions of Australians who rely on it each day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe website is supported by a network of technology infrastructure, security controls, data integrations, geospatial viewers and content management systems.\u202f\u202fThis foundation ensures the website is secure and allows it to draw in huge amounts of data.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the re-design of the Bureau website cost $4.1 million, while the primary channels platform and website build (writing and testing the data integrations and software based on the re-design) cost $79.8 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdditional features, security testing and preparedness for website launch cost $12.6 million. This includes the build, test and deployment of feature releases, and performance and load testing to ensure the website can accommodate peak volumes of traffic we see during severe weather.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jasmin Hyde, a corporate communications expert and director of Hyde & Seek Communications, said the redesign appeared to have prioritised the wrong things.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a national organisation like BoM, intuitive and user-friendly navigation should always come before complex features,\u201d Ms Hyde said. \u201cWhen people are checking weather warnings, they\u2019re seeking clarity, not bells and whistles.<\/p>\n
\u201cLarge digital builds often disappoint when they optimise for internal stakeholders instead of real users. Big budgets don\u2019t guarantee strong outcomes if scope is not tightly controlled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cust said the user experience failures reflected a fundamental misunderstanding of how people use the site.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople don\u2019t go to BoM for a content experience \u2013 they go for instant, high-trust decisions. Can I hang washing? Is it safe to swim? Will my wedding be rained out?\u201d he said. \u201cThe old site wasn\u2019t pretty, but it respected user intent. The new one appears to prioritise internal stakeholder wishes over real-world user behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mick Owar, a veteran web developer, said there was nothing about the new website that warranted the price tag.<\/p>\n
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Environment Minister Murray Watt at Parliament House on Monday.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Australians are looking at is a standard weather dashboard \u2013 functional enough, but technologically unremarkable,\u201d Owar said. \u201cA build like this in the private sector would cost a fraction of the price.\u201d<\/p>\n
The $4.1 million figure initially disclosed by the bureau covered only the front-end redesign. It did not include a $78 million contract with consulting firm Accenture, which grew across nine extensions \u2013 what Flint described as the classic playbook of \u201cunderquoting to win the work, then expanding scope until you\u2019ve built a dependency that\u2019s impossible to unwind\u201d.<\/p>\n
Cust said government agencies were structurally vulnerable to such blowouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn private companies, the person approving spend feels the commercial pain personally. In government, the risk and cost are usually absorbed by the system, not the individual decision-maker,\u201d he said. \u201cThat makes government agencies extremely attractive to large consultancies because long timelines, changing scope and unclear accountability are easier to maintain.\u201d<\/p>\n
New chief executive Stuart Minchin, who has been in the role for just two weeks, said the bulk of the spending was required to secure the bureau\u2019s systems following a 2015 cyberattack<\/a> linked to state-sponsored hackers.<\/p>\n Dr Stuart Minchin started as the Bureau of Meteorology\u2019s chief executive on October 3.Credit: Bureau of Meteorology<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n The bureau said the website now runs on a more secure platform replacing an unencrypted HTTP version that proved vulnerable. Minchin warned that without the upgrade, hackers could have locked up bureau data in a ransomware attack, leaving Australia without weather forecasts \u201cfor an extended period of time\u201d.<\/p>\n Environment Minister Murray Watt has asked Minchin to examine the procurement process and report on how costs escalated.<\/p>\n Nationals Leader David Littleproud said the bureau\u2019s business model \u201cis to fail and ask the taxpayer for more money\u201d.<\/p>\n A scheduled update addressing user complaints was postponed last week due to Severe Tropical Cyclone Fina.<\/p>\n![\"Dr](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/eb95fc26b78928a90bbb1e19aed2e3b7f0b2eef07f268bae26904fe2d1c9d7e7.jpeg\")
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