The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) has received more than 750,000 complaints about its new website, with the staggering figure confirmed by the Bureau's Chief Executive Dr Stuart Minchin this week.
The figure emerged during questioning before the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, where Dr Minchin and his team faced scrutiny over both the volume of complaints and a significant cost blowout on the project which has been loudly criticised by the nation's farmers.
Dr Minchin acknowledged the scale of the complaints but said the organisation was working through them methodically and prioritising the most common issues first.
"It's not something that can be solved overnight," he said. "We have done a number of releases of the website and updated a number of things since launch, including the way the rain radar, which is our primary piece of feedback, presents itself and there is more to come. So we are not completely finished with working through that very long list of feedback but we are addressing the most common pieces of feedback first."
The minister responsible sees it differently. Minister for the Environment and Water Murray Watt told the committee the project was largely complete.
"The website to the best of my knowledge has been completed," he said. "There are ongoing updates being made to that website as occurs with you know most website, but from my point of view the project is largely completed."
Despite the complaints, Dr Minchin said overall site usage - of the new site and the legacy one - had grown since the relaunch in October 2025.
Many producers continue to access the old radars, stating that the new ones are not fit for purpose and difficult to navigate.
Nationals Senator Susan McDonald is one such user, telling the committee the new site was difficult to navigate. She also asked how long the old resources would stay online, which was not answered.
"I would put to you that every single time I log onto use it - because I'm attempting to be, you know, open and exploring the new website - I go mad ... it's bloody impossible," she said.
Senator McDonald also asked if a radar would be provided for Croydon's Gap in Queensland.
Dr Minchin replied that the Bureau operates 69 radars nationally, covering about 98% of Australia's population, with two currently offline for repairs. He said there was no funding to expand the network.
"At this point we don't have any funding to expand that network any further, but we are aware of strong community interest in a number of places around Australia for radar coverage," he said.
He added the Bureau was working towards a project to look at future radar technologies that "may make radars cheaper, more efficient, and that might allow us to expand that network in future", and noted Australia has 100% satellite imagery coverage alongside automatic weather stations and a range of other data inputs used to produce forecasts.
It was revealed that the new website project was originally costed at $34 million, but this jumped to a total of $96.3 million, and was delivered as part of the broader Robust project, which began in the 2017-18 budget.
Bureau Chief Information Officer Nichole Brinsmead said the website component spanned from 2018-19 through to 2025, with expansions and refunding along the way.
" I don't think there was any sort of light bulb moment that went 'oh, this is going to cost more'. As we went through the discovery phase, we estimated the project, and as the costs were incurred, that's when we allocated that budget for it," she said.
Dr Minchin said a Department of Finance review had backed its proceses.
"I should mention that in December last year, soon after I joined, the Department of Finance did its final assessment of the Robust program and gave it a green light under its Gateway Review program, stating that it has been well managed and delivered," he said.
When asked whether anyone had been held accountable for the cost overrun, Dr Minchin was direct.
"We don't believe $96 million was wasted, so no one was fired," he said.
The committee also heard the Bureau's annual budget has grown from under $400 million in 2017-18 to $723 million today.
Senator Malcolm Roberts questioned the Bureau's data accuracy, citing Queensland flood warnings that did not eventuate, and asked whether the Bureau had considered licensing weather station data from Elders' rural network.
"Elders Weather actually adds Weather Zone data to their own rural stations to produce accurate forecasts in the bush," Senator Roberts said. "More accurate than yours. Have you thought of licensing Elders' own station data to make your data more accurate?"
Dr Minchin did not engage with the comparison. "We stand by our accuracy," he said.