Treasury and MBIE at odds over weather data access

Tuesday, 8 January 2019

A new supercomputer will help NZ scientists and researchers grapple with the most important climate challenges.

Government agencies are at odds about how to end a wrangle over freeing up New Zealand's weather data for private forecasting companies.

Documents released to Stuff under the Official Information Act show Treasury and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) disagree about how to solve the problem involving the state-owned enterprise MetService and Crown research institute the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa).

MBIE believes it could negotiate changes with both agencies to minimise their potential loss of income from releasing the largely taxpayer-funded data.

Much of the data used in weather forecasting in New Zealand is collected at taxpayers' expense.

But Treasury does not want to pay for any solution.

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MetService forecasters in their Kelburn, Wellington, forecast room discuss the weather situation.

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The Treasury does not want opening access to weather data to cost the Government anything.

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It thinks 'currently planned changes' by Niwa and MetService will be enough and wants them to pay for those, with no or minimal cost to the Government.

Niwa runs the Christchurch Botanic Gardens weather station, from which observations began 155 years ago in 1863.

In a 'Commercial-in-Confidence Aide Memoire' dated August 7 last year, Treasury says MetService is already increasing 'accessibility and reusability of its observational weather data'.

The changes are listed in an appendix, but every detail has been redacted from the released document.

The document was sent to State-Owned Enterprises Minister Winston Peters, Finance Minister Grant Robertson, Associate Finance Minister David Parker and Associate State-Owned Enterprises Minister Shane Jones.

Much of the data used in weather forecasting in New Zealand is collected at taxpayers' expense.

Private forecasters such as WeatherWatch, who want to be able to compete on an equal footing, argue access to a larger slice of it should be opened up to make it available more immediately before it loses its value for forecasting.

A 2017 review of 'open-access weather data' for MBIE found New Zealand had the most restrictive barriers out of the United States, Norway, Australia, the United Kingdom and France.

Treasury's view of that – stated in the just-released aide memoire – was the existing open-access arrangements were appropriate and to have openness comparable to overseas would require major structural change to Niwa and MetService.

A June 2018 MBIE briefing for Minister of Research, Science and Technology Megan Woods, also released to Stuff under the Act, suggested five options for improving access to data, ranging from the status quo – option one – to structural changes of both agencies.

MBIE recommends option two – negotiating changes based on the amount of potential lost income and other risks.

But in its report, Treasury says option one deserves more serious consideration and has been 'under-represented' in MBIE's briefing.

'There may be sufficient benefits arising as an outcome of open-access changes planned by MetService (and possibly Niwa). We therefore do not view this as the 'do nothing' option, as this goes some way to achieving the open-access principles.'

Choosing MBIE's preferred option could cost the Government and possibly shift value into the private sector, it says.

If ministers supported MBIE's view, Treasury recommended the negotiations be carried out as part of the three-yearly contract talks between MetService and the Minister of Transport, now under way.

MBIE's report has also warned that sharing more data might affect the profitability of Niwa and MetService.