A change in the wind?

HEAVENS above! Is it possible that, finally, something may be about to happen to solve one of the strangest, longestrunning government imbroglios successive administrations have tried to ignore?

If the phrase ‘‘good things take time’’ is correct, then some very good things could come out of the Government’s longoverdue undertaking last weekend to look into the logic of taxpayers funding two public weather forecasting agencies — MetService and Niwa.

MetService, a stateowned enterprise, is the official provider of public forecasts and severe weather warnings. Niwa, a Crown research institute, has significant expertise in meteorology and meteorological research, but was not set up as a forecasting agency.

Yet during the past decade or so, Niwa has unilaterally decided to move into forecasting, which has confused the issue for the public, particularly when extreme weather is on the way.

It would be concerning enough if it just meant there was an unnecessary doubleup, or overlap, of efforts. But it has gone further than that. Niwa has been competing directly with MetService for forecasting work, and a couple of years ago won a contract off it to supply the Department of Conservation with forecasts.

As a consequence of Niwa’s actions, taxpayers are now in the peculiar and perplexing position of paying millions of dollars a year to support unnecessary competition from the CRI.

New Zealanders are obsessed with the weather. It determines what so many of us choose to do every day, or how we do it when there is no alternative.

In these times of increasingly tempestuous weather, we need to know as much as we can about our weather patterns and build our understanding of its potential effects.

What we don’t need is any muddying of the waters the next time a tropical cyclone heads towards the North Island, or severe gales or heavy snowfalls work their way up the South Island.

Despite complaints over years from the public and from private weather companies such as WeatherWatch, National and Labour governments alike have shown a lack of appetite about doing anything to nip the problem in the bud.

Ministers appear largely to have turned a blind eye to the burgeoning of Niwa’s weather division. Neither has Niwa answered questions publicly about its forecasting operation, such as how many staff it employs and how much money it makes for the CRI.

One of the few signs of ministerial concern about the overlap — until now — came five years ago, when then research, science and innovation minister Megan

Woods said she would look into the doubleup to make sure ‘‘there isn’t undue duplication of roles and effort’’.

Nothing came of that.

Good to hear then that StateOwned Enterprises Minister Duncan Webb is taking an interest in the situation and officials from the Treasury and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment are preparing advice on the matter.

Mr Webb told

he was aware of the ‘‘dynamic relationship’’ between the two agencies and the difficulty for them to collaborate, given they operate under different acts of Parliament.

He emphasised that New Zealanders, who are right in the line of fire of climate changeexacerbated storm systems, deserved the most ‘‘robust, accurate and reliable’’ forecasts that could be produced.

MetService chief executive Stephen Hunt told the the SOE has no problem with competition in the general forecasting sector. However, when lives and livelihoods are in jeopardy, he reiterated that MetService is the official voice, authorised by law and backed by the World Meteorological Organisation, of severe weather warnings and watches.

Mr Hunt is right to press home that point. Mixed messages around potentially lifethreatening events are definitely not desirable, and the Government needs to be doing all it can to make sure the public know who is responsible for severe weather forecasts and who to listen to.

There is certainly room for Niwa and the expertise of its scientists in the world of meteorology. But ideally it should be informing the forecasts of MetService with the findings of its research programmes, not getting involved in the prediction game itself.