A Port Stephens Councillor will tonight call for the Bureau of Meteorology to reverse its new $96 million website design, saying “ordinary Australians” are finding the new layout difficult to navigate.
A notice of motion being tabled by Councillor Giacomo Arnott will ask Council to write to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Paterson MP Meryl Swanson expressing “deep frustration” with the change.
Councillor Arnott says locals can’t get basic information.
“It’s an absurd and obscene amount of money to spend on a website that’s been delivered without the needs of Australians in mind and with services that are nearly unusable and inaccessible for local people, for local councils, for emergency management services,” he said.
“There’s certain bits of data that haven’t made the transition over to the new website at all. And that means the people that used to rely on that data just can’t access it. I think people are very lucky that they can still access the old website,” he said.
