AAA<\/p>\n
The Bureau of Meteorology executive who led the agency during last year\u2019s heavily criticised $96 million website redesign that left users unable to navigate the site during a spate of bad weather has resigned.<\/p>\n
Dr Peter Stone, the bureau\u2019s chief customer officer and former acting chief executive, will leave the agency in the coming weeks, as reported by Crikey on Tuesday. He took extended leave at the end of June and has been at the agency since July 2017.<\/p>\n
![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/287e33ef919a57088870c27fa6862180652a4760.jpeg\")
Former acting BOM chief executive Dr Peter Stone. BoM<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the bureau said Stone would depart on June 30: \u201cThe Bureau of Meteorology\u2019s chief customer officer … Dr Peter Stone has made the decision to retire.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stone\u2019s resignation comes almost seven months after the agency launched a disastrous website update during savage storms across Australia\u2019s south-east that stopped regular users \u2013 including farmers and fishermen \u2013 from navigating the site.<\/p>\n
While Stone issued a mea culpa one week after the new website went live, he stopped short of conceding a mistake had been made, instead saying it would \u201ctake time for some to adjust\u201d to the changes.<\/p>\n
Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt said the website had not met users\u2019 expectations and encouraged Australians to share their feedback with the agency, while the Queensland premier blamed the \u201cflawed\u201d website for failing to enable Brisbane residents to be prepare for approaching storms.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the website update, Dr Stuart Minchin took over as head of the agency.<\/p>\n
Watt at the time called for the bureau\u2019s top brass to report to state ministers and explain what they would do to address the public fallout, which resulted in a swift reversion of the BOM radar to the old version<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOur government\u2019s unyielding expectation is that the BOM, as with all federal agencies, spends taxpayers\u2019 money efficiently and appropriately,\u201d Watt said.<\/p>\n Related Article The website saga was not the first time Stone was implicated in national news. He was previously caught up in a court case in which the BOM was found to have breached workplace rules when it unlawfully drove out a senior manager in a \u201csham redundancy\u201d.<\/p>\n Judge Doug Humphreys of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia singled out Stone\u2019s conduct during the 2024 case<\/a>, saying: \u201cIn his oral evidence, Dr Stone was an unsatisfactory witness.\u201d<\/p>\n Humphreys went on to state: \u201cWhen pressed, he acknowledged that [a section] of his first affidavit was untrue, when he said there was \u2018no decision to be made about recruiting or not recruiting\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n The website upgrade was one component of the controversial, nearly decade-long Robust security and technology overhaul, which totalled $866 million. It included forecasting and security upgrades to protect sensitive data from hacking following a serious cybersecurity breach in 2015.<\/p>\n While the bureau initially claimed that the site\u2019s redesign had cost a mere $4.1 million, this figure did not include a $78 million website design contract for private consultancy Accenture Australia, or the extra security upgrades that pushed the disclosed costs closer to $100 million.<\/p>\n Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"How](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/51561b26563e7290e1b30711db91510513d86cc2da64b6638fffe3ca407247c6.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Nick](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/8b15705e3aa35052c4ec444c3acea8314ab4e4b4.png\")
Nick Newling<\/a> is a federal politics reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.![\"Mike](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768102829_963_7f47b503728da7e265c0917951384bea10b25583.png\")
Mike Foley<\/a> is the climate and energy correspondent for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated May 19, 2026 \u2014 3:31pm,first published 2:04pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-680274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}