It takes a special kind of genius to burn through nearly $100 million on a website - and still end up with something users hate.
For weeks the Bureau of Meteorology tried to pretend it had undergone a modest $4m spruce up of the public site.
Eventually the real number emerged: $96.5m for the 'new' website, which is part of a seven year IT program that cost a cool $866m and blew out by more than $77m.
The breakdown is farcical. About $4m was spent on the visible redesign, nearly $80m on the website build itself (seriously), and another $12.6m just to launch it and do security testing. I hope the drinks and canapés were first rate.
That is the bureau's own explanation by the way, not the work of its critics.
Then there is the consultants' gravy train. Accenture's contract reportedly jumped from the low $30m mark to around $78m.
Deloitte's costs went from roughly $11m to $35m. What a joke!
These are not rounding errors, they are clear evidence that no one in charge had a grip on scope, cost, or basic commercial discipline.
Environment Minister Murray Watt (above) has ordered the Bureau of Meteorology to account for the $96m blowout of its website design
If a private company let external vendors more than double and triple their contracts while delivering a product that triggered a public backlash, heads would roll and money would be clawed back.
In government, however, the money is already gone; the vendors move on to the next tender; and the agency issues a carefully worded apology. And, of course, the politicians in charge duck for cover.
This is not some irrelevant arts grant website for elites by the way.
Farmers, emergency services and communities in the path of storms and floods rely on BoM data.
Yet the upgrade went live just as severe weather hit, with users complaining that the site was harder to navigate, key tools like GPS-based location searches were missing or buried, and radar and rainfall displays were more confusing than previously.
The backlash was so intense that BoM partially backflipped and restored the old radar visuals. Money well spent!
The truth is that this is not some quirky one-off. It is how big government projects increasingly get done.
The costs are often hidden behind 'cabinet in confidence' documentation limiting scrutiny; the numbers are withheld from budgets and estimates for years - then exposed only well after the wastage occurred.
Core public sector capability is hollowed out in favour of consultants who embed themselves so deeply that the agency cannot maintain its own systems without them.
The BoM website is an absolute fiasco, but it's also a symptom of a system that lives off waste. It is a political culture that treats public money as a limitless pot, and accountability as an afterthought.
And politicians wonder why ordinary citizens look at government and conclude that it's hopeless, even at the basics.