Donna Demaio: Australia Correspondent on the Bureau of Meteorology renaming the next tropical storm

Australia’s next tropical cyclone is getting a name change.  

Cyclone Zeila’s dissipation has brought the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to the end of an alphabetical list, alternating by gender. 

The next cyclone was due to be named Anthony, but since Anthony Albanese is the current Prime Minister, the decision was made to jump to the next a-initial on the list. 

Australian Correspondent Donna Demaio told Andrew Dickens that when the name matches that of a prominent person, they reorder the name to avoid confusion.  

She says the next name will be Alfred. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, we're off to Australia and it's good morning
to dine on Tomoryow.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Good morning to you.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Will the Reserve Bank cut your interest rates today? Oh?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Wow? Is Australia about to enter a new economic era?
That's the question apparently, So economists are asking ahead of
today's Reserve Bank of Australia announcement on interest rates whether
this is going to happen? Is it going to cut
rates finally? Now, this of course would raise hopes amongst
mortgage holders. The official cash rate, how has it been
sitting at four point three five percent? That since November

(00:29):
twenty twenty three, So it's a long while we've been waiting. Now,
as you know, Australia's face a high inflation of late
rising living costs, and so the banks are predicting. In fact,
A and Z has come out and said there might
even be two cuts this year. CBA's got us even
more excited. Four cuts. Meanwhile, we've heard from an economics
professor and he suggested, well, this anticipated cycle of rate cuts,

(00:53):
well that could be interrupted by no other than the
Trump administration, because we know that they're still thinking of
out their tariffs and trade policies so that could actually
influence what happens for the rest of the year.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yes, and there's a little bit of supply chain difficulty
with all sorts of stuff. I know, our food price
Index came out on Friday. It's gone up again, so
inflation hasn't been killed. It's the same for you guys
in Australia. By the way, New Zealand actually decides what
it's doing with its interest rates tomorrow. The OCA is tomorrow. Now.

(01:27):
How the Prime Minister influenced the naming of cyclones.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Well, I hope you find this as fascinating asiety because look,
in all seriousness though, tropical cyclones Zelia has just dissipated
and that was a powerful category five cyclone that hit
the coast of Western Australia. So there's been floods, there's
been high winds, lots of damage there. But in the
meantime the Bureau of Anerology has come out and said, oh,
actually the next cyclone, we're going to have to change

(01:51):
the name. So what it does to name cyclones is
it just has a list of names in alphabetical order
and it alternates by gender. The next name was due
to be Anthony cycle on Anthony. There's never to be
a cycle on Anthony because our PM is Anthony Albersi.
So instead they're going to jump to the next name,
which happens to be Alfred. The bureau says that when

(02:11):
the name matches a prominent person of the time, they
have to reorder the next name to avoid confusion.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Apparently, yes, I have to say, who wants to be
associated with the natural disaster, you know, especially where you're
suffering in the polls A whay Albanesi is. When I
came back from overseas, it was the same time that
Hurricane Andrew was happening in America, and so people actually
got some headlines out from the paper and welcome me
at the airport, going Hurricane Andrew has arrived of it.

(02:40):
How lovely, Donna, thank you for your time today. For
more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to
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