THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY 24 NOVEMBER 2025
TOPICS: BUREAU OF METEOROLOGY
NATALIE BARR: The Bureau of Meteorology boss has been asked to justify the cost of its widely criticised website redesign, which blew out from the first announced $4 million price tag to, wait for this, $96.5 million. That initial figure was missing at least $78 million paid to a private consultancy firm to build the actual website design. It also includes more than $12 million for security testing. For their take, let's bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and outgoing Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce. Good morning to both of you.
BARNABY JOYCE: Good morning Natalie.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Good morning.
BARR: Tanya, can you justify spending almost $100 million on a new website for the Bureau of Meteorology that no one asked for?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I don't think the new website has been a good exercise for the Bureau of Meteorology. When we came to government, there was a rebranding exercise going on where the BOM was asking people to call it the Bureau instead of the BOM. I said at the time we needed to focus on weather, not rebranding. And there's some upgrades necessary here. The security systems on the computers of the Bureau of Meteorology were very prone to hacking. The previous government was told that, this project started around 2019, so some upgrades were necessary. But an unpopular website that doesn't tell people the weather, well, that's not really delivering, is it?
BARR:Well, exactly. Tanya, if someone wants to spend more than the GDP of a small island nation on the rebuild of a website, does that need to go to the minister for approval, or can they just kind of, you know, sign the cheque?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, the Bureau of Meteorology, obviously, is an organisation whose budget the government has oversight of, and they also have to turn up to Senate estimates and they're questioned by the Parliament and so on. So, there's been, since 2019, when this rebuilding exercise started, there has been some scrutiny, but I think there's been a few revelations in recent times, too, that have surprised everyone.
BARR: Yeah. So Barnaby, you've been a minister. You know, infrastructure, transport, agriculture. Does it come to the minister or can they, can the department just sort of go spend?
JOYCE: Well, ultimately, you would have, I imagine, a briefing coming up for that sort of spending of money. It's outside the minors, which is generally $50 million. The minister is responsible. Now, they told us 4.1--
BARR: Yeah.
JOYCE: It's more than 20 times that. More than 20 times that. So, where this $4.1 million figure came from, which was outrageous in any case, because the website worked. And now we spent $96 million to put a ‘B’ at the end of the BOM site. It's now bomb. It's, it's hopeless. I look it up, even this morning. Danglemah, apparently doesn't exist. Yet we get, we talk from there every Monday morning. And then I get Woolbrook Danglemah Road. Well, there's 100 places, apparently, that is Woolbrook Danglemah Road. I just wanted to know what was happening at the Namoi Radar at Blackjack Mountain. That is what I look for, but apparently, I just have to look at the map of the whole of Australia. It is, it infuriated so many farmers and the people who worked it, because we really liked the old site. It was one of the most visited sites, or the most visited site, I think, on site. Yet now we've got this fiasco and we find out it's cost us $96 million to stuff something up completely.
BARR: Because it kind of sounds funny until you realise it's our money. It's all our money.
JOYCE: It is your money. It is your money.
BARR:It's our actual cash. So, can we go, do we go back to the consultants and say, justify every cent? Have we done that? Does it, you know --
JOYCE: Nat, I'd be serious. Most farmers would want you just to go back to the old site. That's - just give us back what we had. It worked. And --
BARR: But do we get some kind of refund? I mean, one, one consultancy earlier in the year gave the government back 100 grand because they'd put it through AI.
JOYCE: Well --
BARR: Tanya, can we be sure that this hasn't been taken through AI, or are we sure this is a good expenditure, that $79 million?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well --
JOYCE: Well, I just - I just --
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -- The BOM has a new --
JOYCE: -- it's not value for money.
BARR: Yeah, Tanya.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: The BOM has a, the BOM has a new CEO and he's been there a week. The minister's met with him twice already to get into the detail of this. I think it is really important that we do look at the detail. We look at value for money, we look at functionality. The most important thing, of course, is that it works for people --
JOYCE: It doesn't.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -- when there's an extreme weather event coming --
JOYCE: Well, it doesn't.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -- and we know that with climate change, these are more frequent and more extreme and less predictable than ever, so --
JOYCE: Well, it doesn't work.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK:-- it's absolutely vital that the website works for people --
JOYCE: It doesn't.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -- when those extreme weather events are in the, you know, likely to happen.
BARR: But people are in --
JOYCE: It doesn't work.
BARR: -- a cost-of-living crisis. People are, you know, counting every penny at Coles, and then they see that their tax dollars are going to this. It is so frustrating, Barnaby. Do you think --
JOYCE: Yes.
BARR: How do we - How do we --
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It is, yeah
BARR: This is just the one we know about. What else is happening in government, Barnaby, that is being wasted out there?
JOYCE: At Cabinet, which Tanya's on, they will come forward with a whole list of things, other things departments are doing, and it's called the minors. It's at the back of the Cabinet papers.
BARR: Right.
JOYCE:Now, quite obviously, that's gone through without anybody saying, "Hey, I'm just looking at this last night. What the hell's going here? With $96 million for a website, that can't be right". But, it sailed through, which means that other decisions are just sailing through without the proper oversight of what's happening --
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well --
JOYCE: -- and saying "Oh well, it's climate change". Everything seems to be climate change these days --
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Barnaby this started in 2019 --
JOYCE: -- I lose at the races it's climate change --
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -- so it sailed through your Cabinet, in that case.
JOYCE: -- I have an argument with my wife, it's climate change --
BARR: Hang on, no, when did it go through?
JOYCE: -- Everything's climate change. Climate change --
BARR: Wait a second. Tanya, when was this approved?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, well, hang on a second. Hang on a second. This project started in 2019 --
JOYCE: I know. It's our fault.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -- under the previous CEO --
JOYCE: It's our fault.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK:-- and under the previous government. Well, I'm not saying it's your fault, Barnaby.
JOYCE: Of course, yeah.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I'm saying that this has been going since 2019, and if you're talking about something sailing through Cabinet, you better have a look at your own Cabinet paper.
JOYCE: Well, no. The final costing went through you, Tanya. It's you - it's now when the bills turned up, you've had to pay it. So, you're responsible for it Tanya.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And I'm --
JOYCE: You are the government.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And I'm saying this is a--
JOYCE: Epiphany, you're the government.
BARR: Tanya, when did the costing go through?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And I'm saying this is a serious issue. Well, I don't --
JOYCE: What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it?
BARR: Hang on Barnaby.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yes, the project started in 2019 under a previous CEO. The reason that the whole of the back end of the computer system has had to be rebuilt is because we had, or the previous government had information that it was very vulnerable to attack. Now, you can imagine a cyber attack that takes out all of our weather information as a storm's approaching. Like that is a very serious risk to Australian safety and the previous government began to act on it. And I'm not blaming Barnaby. I'm explaining that you were given information when you were in government that there was serious risk to the compromise of the system and it was important to act. The fact that it has gone over budget and has been that the functionality of it is not good is something that the new CEO has to get to the bottom of. He's been there for a week.
BARR:Do we know when the price came up in those papers?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I suspect it's come up not in as one cost, but as you know, we need to do this now, although there's been an overrun. We need to go back to the drawing board. That's what I suspect happened here in.
BARR: The old hide it in 50 budgets trick.
JOYCE: On that security thing, even on the figures that Channel 7 just brought up, that was $12 million of the 96. So, what was the rest for?
BARR: Well, apparently it was $4 million for the redesign, $79 million for the website build and then 12 for the security testing. That's what we're being told.
JOYCE: I bet you there's a lot of young people out there who are computer programs would like a bit of that coin.
BARR: Yeah, exactly. Well, look, if you are in, and we do appreciate that it has to be done properly, but it would be interesting to compare it to a big company that gets their website designed. Did they spend $100 million?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah.
BARR: But, you know, obviously add the security testing. Thank you very much. We obviously will do a lot more on this because it's taxpayers' money and we want to know how it's spent. Thank you both. We'll see you next week.
ENDS
