Proposal for More Staff

I was disappointed when Allan Atkins achieved promotion to a senior position in the Northern Territory administration but it was obvious that his talents deserved a wider field of development. In April 1963 Dick Kingsland had replaced W. McLaren as Permanent Head of our Department and in December 1963 Hon John Gorton replaced the Hon Gordon Freeth as Minister for the Interior. In March 1964 a Cabinet reshuffle saw Gorton (later to become Prime Minister) promoted as Minister for Works, being replaced as Minister for the Interior by the youthful Hon Douglas Anthony.

Dick Kingsland and Doug Anthony were an ideal combination of bosses. They kept in close touch with Bureau activities and were especially interested in Bureau services for the general community and the special weather-sensitive sectors such as aviation and primary industry. They relied on the Bureau to keep them fully informed of our activities but placed complete trust in our management of Bureau affairs. They took some convincing that my submission for staff increases and upgrading of the Bureau's scientific status should be put to Cabinet and examined draft submissions in detail, but on 11 May 1964 the Minister submitted Submission No 194 to Cabinet.

Our supporting documents for the Cabinet submission, printed on glossy paper, were regarded with some scepticism by our more experienced Public Service colleagues who told us that their appearance would create a bad impression with Cabinet Ministers. The submission was approved by Cabinet except for one important item which will be discussed under the next heading.

The approved staff increase was the beginning of a somewhat sensational growth in Bureau numbers which continued until the early 1970s when the number of staff was more than double that when I had taken office. This was a time when the Bureau was attempting to introduce modern technology in its operations, an initiative which required new systems to be developed and proved in parallel with the operation of existing systems. This parallel operation was necessarily required until the new systems proved successful, and the old could be discarded.

Bureau of Meteorology