Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Meteorology Amendment (Online Advertising) Bill 2014 (the Bill) amends the Meteorology Act 1955 to provide certainty in relation to the Director of Meteorology's powers to include advertising in connection with the Bureau of Meteorology's services and determine the types of advertising that the bureau displays.

The Bureau of Meteorology is relied upon every day by the Australian community to deliver accurate and timely information particularly during events where life and property are at risk. The introduction of online advertising followed the 2011 Munro review of the bureau's capacity to respond to future extreme weather and natural disaster events and to provide seasonal forecasting services. The review recommended that options be explored to obtain revenue from advertising on the bureau's highly popular website.

Advertising on the bureau's website was trialled for 12 months in 2012-13 and became a permanent measure from 1 July 2013 after being announced in the 2013-14 budget.

This amendment to the Meteorology Act will remove any doubt to make it explicitly clear that the Bureau of Meteorology can accept paid advertising, allowing the bureau to further diversify its sources of funding.

It will also require the Director of Meteorology to develop and publish guidelines on the types of advertising that the bureau will display. This will allow the director to prohibit advertising that is considered to not be in the Commonwealth's or the bureau's interests. It is expected that the director's guidelines will be based on the bureau's existing Online Advertising Policy, which was developed and published during the advertising trial and is founded on existing industry advertising laws, regulations and codes of conduct.

Debate adjourned.