MP rejects BoM plan to take jobs out of north

FEBRUARY 12, 2016: BUREAU of Meteorology (BOM) staff paid me a visit in Canberra yesterday to explain their rationale for relocating three staff out of both Mackay and Townsville, but I'm still not convinced it’s the right move.I state again in no uncertain terms that I will not be supporting this change, which removes all on-the-ground weather bureau staff from our regional cities.If the bureau believes it’s a good move then they better get out and start explaining it to the public.They say that a fully automated system will produce a new observation every 30 minutes, as opposed to the four a day that manual observers produce.They also say there will be triple redundancy built into the system, which means that if one system drops out there will be another to take its place, and if that system drops out there will be yet another to take its place.The reality is what they are proposing is there will be no BOM staff anywhere in a 1700km stretch between Brisbane and Cairns.The plan is to completely phase out the role of manual weather observers as all observers would be retrained as technicians.My question is ‘why do they all have to be located in Brisbane or Cairns?’Why can’t we have some in Mackay and Townsville which is after all the cyclone belt?It appears to have come down to an accounting decision but when you’re dealing with people’s livelihoods, weather and potential natural disasters, I don’t believe this is the right decision.