E&OE TRANSCRIPT
ABC RADIO SYDNEY
MONDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2025
SUBJECT: BOM Website, Environment Laws, Liberal Leadership
HAMISH MACDONALD, HOST: Let’s take you to our Parliament House studios now, Samantha Maiden is the political editor for News.com.au, Susan Templeman, Labor MP for Macquarie, a very good morning to you both.
SAMANTHA MAIDEN, POLITICAL EDITOR FOR NEWS.COM.AU: We’re here together and we're crammed into the studio like little sardines
SUSAN TEMPLEMAN, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MACQUARIE: It’s cozy!
MAIDEN: It wouldn't work in COVID distancing, let me tell you. It’d be illegal.
MACDONALD: No cat swinging in there.
MAIDEN: No! We love cats, we won't be swinging them.
MACDONALD: Sam, can we talk websites please?
MAIDEN: Oh yes.
MACDONALD: The BOM website, have you been on it, would you like to offer a view of it?
MAIDEN: Well, I think I should spend some time on it, because it cost us $96 million. Look, I mean, just seems to be a bit of a cost blowout. Am I correct that it started off at $4 million and turned out at $96 million?
MACDONALD: That does seem like a pretty big jump.
MAIDEN: Yeah, I mean I’ve done some renos out the back of my house before and we all get used to the builder overrun but that one would raise eyebrows you would think. Everyone is sort of unhinging about it, but I must say I think it was Mike Foley in the SMH who broke the story a day or two ago, my favourite line in the story was this ‘the website disaster came after the bureau last year sent a full tsunami warning to half the country during a transition to new software. The message was marked as test but sparked alarm among many in NSW, Victoria and Queensland’ I mean.
MACDONALD: Wow
MAIDEN: I mean, maybe they need to spend $96 million so they don't tell people they’re going to have a tsunami.
MACDONALD: Susan Templeman, how does your government justify or explain this?
TEMPLEMAN: Well, this is something that the Bureau of Meteorology has been told isn’t good enough, and the Minister has made that really clear. We weren't there when it started, but we certainly have to be responsible for ensuring that the website and the apps deliver what people need. I think I was one of the first MPs to be flagging that there were problems. My community, we flood, we burn, we are very attuned to the weather and the details about it. People use the website and the app a lot, so it isn't good enough and particularly going into a fire season, this thing has to work really effectively and be accurate.
MACDONALD: Can I draw your attention, though, to the amount that went to private consulting firms? $78 million, now your government said it was trying to move away from using consultants. How on earth was that allowed to happen?
TEMPLEMAN: Well, I think what we found coming to government is a lot of expertise had been lost from the public sector and so one of the things that we do is rebuild that expertise, but -
MACDONALD: $78 million? I just can't even fathom -
TEMPLEMAN: I’m not going to say that it’s a great thing, you know, we all want to understand how this happened and the new CEO is charged with doing just that. They'll obviously be, I think he’s been there a week? I don't think there are necessarily answers at the ready, but this is the sort of thing that governments have responsibility to dig in and say, what went wrong here? What do we do to make sure this doesn't happen again. We all know that part of this issue was around cybersecurity and ensuring that this is a really secure site that can't be hacked and that's a challenge facing lots of aging infrastructure, IT infrastructure in both the private and public sector. These are all challenges, and we really need to understand what went wrong and make sure it certainly doesn't get repeated and be really confident that the end product is delivering to communities like mine, the sort of information they need, not just on a daily basis but when things are really critical.
MAIDEN: I think that’s a really good point, the cybersecurity issue and that is a legitimate thing, it’s not like setting up some simple website on Wordpress and I think everyone understands that but I think the questions that the government have to answer is clearly they would have been apprised of these cost overruns, as they were going. They must have had to go back to the government for more money so I think there are some big questions here about how this has unfolded.
MACDONALD: I think maybe someone needs to introduce the concept of a ‘fixed contract’ to the federal government agencies when they are agreeing to these things.
I want to talk to you both about the environmental laws. The Environment Minister this morning, pretty hot under the collar, saying look it’s all on the Coalition and the Greens to help us deliver this, one way or the other before the end of the parliamentary year. The Shadow Environment Minister Angie Bell says the Coalition wants to see more checks on the power of the new EPA, the Environmental Protection Authority.
[AUDIO GRAB]
MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: I am prepared to compromise a little bit more on either side to get this through, as long as we don’t get rid of those core principles. That’s where the discussions will now focus over the next couple of days.
[AUDIO GRAB ENDS]
MACDONALD: That was the response from Murray Watt, the Environment Minister. Sam Maiden, if there is to be a compromise and a deal done, do you think it’s more likely with The Greens or with the Coalition.
MAIDEN: Well, I think the Labor Party would prefer if it was with the Coalition, Murray Watt is obviously saying that it’s now or never, he's saying he’ll do a deal with either side. He said Labor is willing to move on some but not all of the Coalition’s demands, and The Greens have also got some offers on the table, considering an offer on forestry but their party room is quite divided. It’s always going to be better for the Labor Party if they can say that they’ve done a deal with the Coalition rather than The Greens on an issue like this.
MACDONALD: Susan Templeman, do you have a preference? Would you prefer to do the deal with the Coalition? Because the Coalition are saying there's too much power for the EPA under these rules.
TEMPLEMAN: I think there's a lot of stuff being said publicly. I think what matters is the progress in negotiations and I want to see a balanced package go through the parliament. It doesn’t matter to me at this point who is the other party that compromises and comes to the centre with us to ensure that this is making big gains for the environment but also smoothing the way for developers so it’s clearer what can and can't be done. There’s benefits for everybody and the package that we want to pass will have benefits for everybody. I think it's very interesting how publicly it's been negotiated yet we all know that the real discussions are happening behind closed doors, and we won't know the outcome until it’s a done deal.
MACDONALD: Susan Templeman is here, the Labor Member for Macquarie, Sam Maiden is the political editor for News.com.au. It's twenty-one minutes past nine here on mornings. Before we spoke to you both this morning Kellie Sloane was here, the new State Opposition Leader in NSW. Theres a new State Opposition Leader in Victoria, also young, female, first term MP. We had a lot of feedback on the Kellie Sloane conversation this morning, one text says ‘I’ll give Kellie twelve months and the Libs will go back to a bloke before the next election.’ another text though says ‘We tiptoe around it but surely Sloane is there mainly for the ‘rizz’ factor, the charisma factor. Political leaders do -
MAIDEN: Oh wow, that’s sexist.
MACDONALD: Yeah how are you observing Sam, this arrival of some pretty, regardless of your politics, some pretty competent, assured, confident leaders of state Liberal Parties.
MAIDEN: Look, full disclosure I actually sort of grew up with Kellie Sloane in Adelaide as a baby journo. Kellie Sloane, I’m going to be honest here she was the nicest person. She was really respected among her peers in Adelaide and she went off to greatness in NSW, Sydney and people were cheering her on, you know. I mean, they thought she was great. She grew up in the Barossa Valley so sort of not like country background but a regional background, not big city Adelaide even if you want to call Adelaide a big city for the Sydneysiders listening. But look on the more broader issue, she’s relatively new to politics, like we’ll see how she goes but I don’t know too much about how she’s gonna fly but I did find her an impressive person as a young person but this is going back when I knew her thirty years ago. I just think there’s a lot of sexism around, isn’t there? I think that she’s a pretty impressive, potentially charismatic leader who is relatively new to the game as I suppose in some ways Chris Minns was when he was elevated to greatness.
I think that in general with these female leaders the whole game is ridiculous. They never put them in and then when they do, they want to get rid of them and blame it on them being a woman. I mean, it’s just preposterous and with Sussan Ley, even today there's a Newspoll out saying that she is regarded by voters as better than Andrew Hastie, but the spin is ‘Oh when are we gonna get Andrew Hastie’.
MACDONALD: And the headlines are that Hastie is sort of in a prime position but actually he’s a long way behind her in these polls.
MAIDEN: I mean, to be fair, he is I think the next cab off the rank, and I think a lot of people find him very impressive. I’m not debating any of that. But the one thing I would say is there was an article in The Aus today that my colleague who I love and adore, Geoff Chambers wrote which was Labor MPs basically saying oh if she was in the Labor Party Sussan Ley would’ve already been rolled. This is absolute garbage. On what planet have the Labor Party ever elected a leader and then rolled them after like eight months. Nonsense. Hasn't happened. Now, don’t get me wrong, do I think that they’re gonna let Sussan Ley keep going, do I think they’re gonna give her a fair go or a crack? Absolutely not. I think they're gonna get rid of her before the next election, they're not gonna give her a go, right, and then they are gonna put this young, 42 year old Andrew Hastie born in 1982 involved who’s got no cabinet experience and maybe the rules will be different for him. I just think there’s a lot of sexism that still exists around female political leaders that is absolute garbage.
MACDONALD: I wish I could be in the tearoom in your office later today
MAIDEN: No, no. Geoff Chambers. I’ve got no problem with what Geoff Chambers wrote, like, he was accurately reflecting Labor sentiment but I’m just saying that the analysis, to me, that the Labor MPs have made to him, is garbage.
MACDONALD: Sam Maiden, Susan Templeman thank you very much.
TEMPLEMAN: Thank you.
ENDS
