The Bureau of Meteorology's (BOM) flawed and expensive redesigned website will come under renewed scrutiny, with the federal environment minister asking the agency's new boss to closely examine how it all went so wrong, and report back to him.
It comes amid revelations that the new website cost more than $96 million to design — a far cry from the $4 million figure it originally claimed had been spent.
The national weather agency was flooded with complaints by the public after the website was launched a month ago.
Users found it difficult to navigate, and also criticised the changes to the radar map, which made place names hard to read.
BOM users, farmers in particular, were critical of the changes made to the radar map. (ABC Rural: Justine Longmore)
Farmers were scathing, as they were unable to locate rainfall data.
The federal government was forced to intervene, ordering the agency to fix the website.
The site has since reverted to the old version of the radar map and other tweaks have been made to the site, with further changes to be rolled out.
In a statement provided to the ABC, the BOM admitted "the total cost of the website is approximately $96.5 million".
'Complete rebuild necessary'
It said the cost breakdown included $4.1 million for the redesign, $79.8 million for the website build, and the site's launch and security testing cost $12.6 million.
"A complete rebuild was necessary to ensure the website meets modern security, usability and accessibility requirements for the millions of Australians who reply on it every day," a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also said it had "continued to listen to and analyse community feedback" since the launch of the new website on October 22.
The BOM says it continues to listen to and analyse community feedback. (ABC News: Greg Bigelow)
Nine days after the launch it changed the radar map back to what it had previously been.
"This brought back the visual style that the community said they found intuitive and reliable for interpreting weather conditions,"a spokesperson said.
"This option was already available on the new site but not as the default setting when visiting the page.
"On 7 November we implemented changes to help the community find important fire behaviour index information."
Future changes were also in the pipeline in response to community feedback, according to the spokesperson, but some updates had been paused due to Severe Tropical Cyclone Fina in northern Australia.
Minister's expectations 'have been made very clear'
Environment Minister Murray Watt said he had met twice in the past week with the new CEO Stuart Minchin to reiterate his concerns about the bungled process and the cost.
The environment minister says he has met twice with the BOM's new boss. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)
He has asked Mr Minchin to report back to him on the issue.
"I don't think it's secret that I haven't been happy with the way the BOM has handled the transition to the new website," he told reporters on Sunday.
"I met with him on his first day and during the week just gone, to outline again that I think 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 — the functionality — and I'm pleased to see they've made changes.
"But I've also asked him to get on top of how we got to this position with this cost, with the problems.
"He's only been in the job for a week but I think my expectations have been made very clear."
The minister has asked new BOM boss, Stuart Minchin, to prioritise the issues with the website. (Supplied: BOM)
However the minister stopped short of describing the website as a sheer waste of money, saying he would wait to hear back from Mr Minchin before commenting.
"Before leaping to judgement, I want to see what the new CEO of the BOM has been able to establish as to the reasons for those cost increases and I'll make my judgement at that point in time."
'Another Labor disaster'
Nationals leader David Littleproud said there should be "consequences" after the revelations about the true cost of the website.
"It is unbelievable a private consultancy was paid $78 million to redesign the website," Mr Littleproud said.
"But then security and system testing meant that Australian taxpayers actually paid $96 million for what was nothing more than another Labor disaster,.
"The seriousness of this cannot be understated. This isn't just about a clunky website, the changes actually put lives and safety at risk.
"The new platform did not allow people to enter GPS coordinates for their specific property locations, restricting searches to towns or postcodes.
"Families and farmers could not access vital, localised data such as river heights and rainfall information and this missing data created panic and fear across communities.
"But now, the fact the BOM has been hiding the true cost of its white elephant and initially lying about the total figure is deeply concerning, considering that the BOM should be all about trust."