*In the lead-up to the May 2022 election, the Bureau of Meteorology instructed its communications team to refer any questions on climate change to senior management under a media approvals policy for “sensitive” topics.*
*Emails from February and March 2022, obtained by this masthead, suggest questions about climate, severe weather, floods, and the Great Barrier Reef had to be referred up the chain, and sometimes as far as chief executive Dr Andrew Johnson.*
*[…] The BoM would not comment on the February 2022 email, which gave guidance based on a conversation with three executives including the then general manager of communications. All three executives have since left the company.*
*The email sent to five members of the communications team, and copied in to two of the three managers, explains that the general manager of communications will decide if a heads-up or further clearance from the chief executive or another senior manager is needed.*
*The email also says that communications staff must not reply to a media inquiry without checking with a manager if the journalist is from a national media outlet or “known to require additional support”.*
*No further clearance was required for “routine weather of the day” and forecasts if it did not relate to extreme weather.*
*[…] A separate email from March 2022 shows how a request for a senior meteorologist to be interviewed by Sales on 7.30 about the NSW and Queensland floods was flagged for referral to Johnson and turned down.*
*The interview request was for March 1, 2022, a few days after the catastrophic Lismore flood.*
*[…] In a third email, from March 2, 2024, a News Corp journalist asked about difficulties the BoM was facing in providing forecasts about the Queensland floods, including how much climate change was affecting the ability to accurately forecast.*
*The response outlined the forecasts the BoM had provided over several days, and there was no on-the-record response on the climate change question, only a link to the 2020 State of the Climate report.*
*[…] A former employee who worked as an executive assistant for 10 years and was laid off in 2020 said the cautious approach to climate change communication predated Johnson’s time as chief executive because the organisation saw its role as the guardian of the data and believed talking about impacts was politicisation. She asked for her name to be withheld to protect her current job.*
*Johnson was appointed by the Coalition government in 2016 and reappointed for another five-year term in 2021.*
1 Comment
Excerpts from [article](https://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/internal-documents-show-bom-escalated-questions-on-climate-and-floods-20240909-p5k92b.html) by Caitlin Fitzsimmons and Nick O’Malley:
*In the lead-up to the May 2022 election, the Bureau of Meteorology instructed its communications team to refer any questions on climate change to senior management under a media approvals policy for “sensitive” topics.*
*Emails from February and March 2022, obtained by this masthead, suggest questions about climate, severe weather, floods, and the Great Barrier Reef had to be referred up the chain, and sometimes as far as chief executive Dr Andrew Johnson.*
*[…] The BoM would not comment on the February 2022 email, which gave guidance based on a conversation with three executives including the then general manager of communications. All three executives have since left the company.*
*The email sent to five members of the communications team, and copied in to two of the three managers, explains that the general manager of communications will decide if a heads-up or further clearance from the chief executive or another senior manager is needed.*
*The email also says that communications staff must not reply to a media inquiry without checking with a manager if the journalist is from a national media outlet or “known to require additional support”.*
*No further clearance was required for “routine weather of the day” and forecasts if it did not relate to extreme weather.*
*[…] A separate email from March 2022 shows how a request for a senior meteorologist to be interviewed by Sales on 7.30 about the NSW and Queensland floods was flagged for referral to Johnson and turned down.*
*The interview request was for March 1, 2022, a few days after the catastrophic Lismore flood.*
*[…] In a third email, from March 2, 2024, a News Corp journalist asked about difficulties the BoM was facing in providing forecasts about the Queensland floods, including how much climate change was affecting the ability to accurately forecast.*
*The response outlined the forecasts the BoM had provided over several days, and there was no on-the-record response on the climate change question, only a link to the 2020 State of the Climate report.*
*[…] A former employee who worked as an executive assistant for 10 years and was laid off in 2020 said the cautious approach to climate change communication predated Johnson’s time as chief executive because the organisation saw its role as the guardian of the data and believed talking about impacts was politicisation. She asked for her name to be withheld to protect her current job.*
*Johnson was appointed by the Coalition government in 2016 and reappointed for another five-year term in 2021.*