BOM launched its new website, which was also built by Accenture Australia, in October 2025 during an extreme weather event. It was widely criticised for its costs and poor design, including changes to its rain radar display.
Upon launch, BOM said the website cost $4.1 million to reconfigure. But it has since been revealed that the real cost was approximately $96.5 million, owing to the cost of upgrading and testing its back-end systems.
Much of the cost can be attributed to the $78 million contract signed with Accenture, which initially started as a $31 million contract and grew across nine extensions.
During a Senate estimates hearing late last year, Greens senator Barbara Pocock described the broader program as a "nightmare Harvard case study in contract failure and management of contracts", specifically citing Accenture in her criticism.
"This is a firm that is famous for 'land and expand'," she said.
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In the US, President Donald Trump has taken the axe to the government workforce, with science and climate agencies taking major hits.
In Australia, the CSIRO is also facing significant cuts.
Most recently, it was announced that the organisation would lose up to 350 full-time equivalent jobs across its research units, including reports of over 100 job losses in their Environmental Research Unit.
Senator Whish-Wilson said, given this, Australian scientists would be "rightly questioning" what the government's priorities were.
"Scientists are going to be devastated if they hear that tens of millions of dollars are being spent on new web services when they're being told there's no money to pay for their salaries and for the critical science that they do," he said.
"[Science] which, by the way, feeds into Australian Climate Services and will be used on this website or updated web portal."