Isdon - the majority of airports overseas do not train their Tower ATCs as Met Observers but Airservices does. Hence the ATIS you get overseas is just the current METAR spoken onto the tape. In Australia you get the controller observations but only changed in accordance with a set of instructions, not every two minutes as you contend. That's why Australian Towers were not in the habit of giving a wind with every landing or take off clearance. The ATIS wind is accurate not what the MET man saw 30 minutes ago.