Cost for vital rainfall data not huge, minister tells councils
Queensland councils face a stark choice: pay thousands for vital flood data or rely on BOM’s website, as federal minister dismisses cost concerns.
Queensland councils aren’t being asked to pay a huge amount to access critical Bureau of Meteorology rainfall data, Environment Minister Murray Watt says.
The Bureau of Meteorology will phase out a key piece of software known as Enviromon, which provides real-time rainfall and river level gauge data to Queensland councils, from July next year.
Enviromon will be replaced by OneRain, which cannot be sublicensed free of charge to councils.
The federal government has been urged to step up and support councils, but Senator Watt said the cost to them was small compared with the Commonwealth’s investment in the weather bureau.
“I have great concern about public safety and I have great concern about making sure that through the BOM we provide reliable information to councils and to the public,” he said.
“The issue is that the federal government invests hundreds of millions of dollars in the BOM every single year.
“I have seen some reports that councils don’t want to pay $20,000 or $30,000 a year to purchase software in the same way the BOM has.
“I think when you weigh up the federal government’s investment in these sorts of activities versus $20,000 or $30,000, it’s not a huge amount to ask of councils.
“There are free options available to them by relying on the information that’s available on the BOM website.”
Senator Watt said councils could pay for OneRain software or use freely available data on the BOM website.
“I’m not going to dictate to each council what they should do, it’s a matter for them,” he said.
It comes as the cost of BOM’s controversial website redesign totalled $96m.
Senator Watt said weather bureau CEO Dr Stuart Minchin was investigating the rollout.
“The BOM hasn’t met public expectations, both in terms of the performance of the website and the cost of the website so I’ve asked him as his first priority to make sure that he can get on top of the issues with the website,” he said.
“I’m pleased to see that they’ve made changes but I have also asked him to get on top of how we got to this position with this cost, with the problems that have been involved in the website.”
Originally published as Cost for vital rainfall data not huge, minister tells councils
