Wednesday was sadly another example of the crumbling MetService infrastructure set up in 1991 and now constantly userped by NIWA. Over the past 24 hours MetService, along with their new Marketing partners at Auckland Civil Defence (who don’t seem to care about accuracy anymore – their manager clearly needs to ‘make the news’), simply ran a marketing campaign to be in the news ahead of being accurate with severe weather – something noted by not only the general Auckland public but some of Auckland’s largest corporates too – as they contacted WeatherWatch.co.nz today to ask ‘where is the major storm they are both forecasting?’.

It’s like the taxpayers of NZ being forced to fund the continuation of United Video or Video Ezy when Netflix is coming in.

MetService and Auckland Civil Defence (ACDEM) no longer appear to care about accuracy (they 100% refuse to work with the private sector) – instead “LET’S BE IN THE NEWS!” seems to be a far more exciting idea for those perhaps involved in NZ’s biggest city bureaucracy. Not sure about you, but when I was a kid growing up Civil Defence wasn’t about ‘clickbait’ – instead Civil Defence was once a proud institution that was there for you in a disaster, when it REALLY ACTUALLY HAPPENED and MATTERED – not the day before hedging their bets to get in the news (to justify the bosses job).  

Now, one must assume ACDEM are getting ‘ahead of the news’ to justify their own internal jobs – rather than the greater love and care of the Auckland general community, which has been WeatherWatch.co.nz’s role for 15 plus years (and why under previous management Civil Defence hired WW for 8 years to reduce MetService false alarms for the city – something now sorely clearly missed).  Which means Civil Defence is sadly becoming a brand New Zealanders should not trust – that is heartbreaking to write, but in the case of ACDEM they are proving they are on the side of commercial hype before accuracy. In my opinion there isn’t a single other thing we could do to destroy their already waning credibility (remember in December last year – at the peak of Auckland’s worst power cut in several months ACDEM gave Aucklander’s the “all clear†as literally the most destructive thunderstorm was underway. Why? Their commercial side won’t challenge MetService who clearly told them the risk was over. Ask Vector (the power company) if the risk was over).

Thunderstorms in June are very normal. Over the top warnings from a commercial Government Agency – MetService – are not. And yes – COMMERCIAL is the core of MetService’s tax funded operation when they are now head on competing on a commercial level not with tiny WeatherWatch but instead with gigantic 200-million-dollar-a-year-tax-funded-NIWA which gets about an extra 150 million dollars per year more than MetService does from all of you – the hardworking Kiwi taxpayers.

If you’re using WeatherWatch – none of your tax dollars go towards us. Over 200 million a year goes to MetService and NIWA and when the private sector challenge this the Government will give them an extra 17 million dollars (as they did just over the last few weeks – for no reason other than competition in our tiny private sector… which shows we’re on the right track).

In recent years another (even more commercial agency) NIWA (formally the National Institute of Weather and Atmospheric research but these days NIWA seems to stand for “No Idea What’s Ahead”) has challenged MetService‘s accuracy on a COMMERCIAL level (NIWA is a *much* larger Government agency than MetService ever could be and their CEO John Morgan earns more than Prime Minister Adern and he believes he does not have to justify why – ok sure, but your taxes fund his nearly 700K a year job for no real reason Weird that he insists no one cares about how much he earns on your behalf).

Once again this week both Government agencies were on a different page. Why? Because both have commercial interests ahead of public interests. They both want to make money that Minister Megan Woods says she wants to then “spend”. Minister Woods never mentioned once in our 60 minute meeting last year that she cared about better weather accuracy for New Zealanders – her entire focus was on spending their (your) profits (and despite your tax investment they actually don’t always pay a profit back to the NZ Govt – talk about being ripped off – yet no one ever seems to care about this!).

MetService – along with their ‘marketing partners-in-crime’ Auckland Civil Defence – both tried to hype up a weather event for Auckland on Wednesday that was NEVER going to be a major event.

MetService even went out of their way to promote computer modelling they have – despite two years ago telling Stuff.co.nz they didn’t believe in computer technology, such as IBM.

MetService hyped today SO much they crashed their own tax and rate payer funded infrastructure – this also happens in most storms they both breathlessly hype up to justify their own commercial competition towards the bigger Government Agency – NIWA. Minister Woods didn’t care to hear about this – as she said, she wants to spend their profits – doesn’t care about their day to day ethics and she truly believes they don’t compete – even though everyone with ‘Google’ can clearly see they do.

MetService has recently issued new warning systems. They never once engaged the media or private forecaster in this process. Instead, much like a heavy Russian Government Agency they instead told the news media their new rules. Today their warnings were utterly confusing – but perhaps got them the commercial news attention they need now that NIWA has usurped MetService‘s power commercially (remember we fund both of these agencies!) (eg they break news to Radio NZ about Cyclone Gita hitting NZ – and Minister Woods blamed that particular news story on a reporter in the media – yet had no interest on NIWA actually responding!). Why? Because NIWA is a bigger agency and Minister Megan Woods simply said the weather monopoly was “good for New Zealanders” because it was additional money She/The Government could spend. They spend about 200 million tax payer dollars a year to get barely 1 million in return – and some years 0 return.

New Zealand remains the ONLY country in the ENTIRE western world that believes the public should not only FUND weather data, but they should pay several times that amount again to receive and use it. As we said, Minister Woods prefers to spend the profit than bank on better accuracy. That’s very weird in our view for a minister that should care about science. 

In an exclusive news update – we’re now telling all of New Zealand we will fill this gap. We will find a private alternative so New Zealanders no longer need to fund a third world weather agency that makes a profit for one Minister to “spend”.

– Opinion piece by CEO and Head Forecaster Philip Duncan.