Daylight saving

While New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory and South Australia adjusted their clocks to daylight saving (adjusting the official local time forward, by one hour) a couple of weeks ago (earlier in Tasmania) we in Queensland together with Western Australia and the Northern Territory have left our clocks untouched.

In a 1992 referendum Queenslanders categorically rejected daylight saving. I am unaware of the specific arguments back then, but based on the discussions in the media this time around they seem to have revolved around beginning the day in darkness, ruining some farmers routines, disruption in sleep patterns and increased temperature at the end of the day.

Queenslanders appear to have the daylight saving discussion annually and this year was no exception with Premier Peter Beattie fronting the peculiar argument that daylight saving would have the consequence of increasing our exposure to the sun, increasing the risk of developing skin cancer (click here for a presentation of the arguments). Funny, he didn't argue for daylight saving as way of conserving power in these climate change times.

The main problem is of course that Queensland is huge in all directions. There is little seasonal variation in the tropical north, while the south has a more temperate and variable climate. For us living in Brisbane (which is the far east) the problem is also exaggerated. Sunrise here is earlier than in the west. Sunrise in summer is very early. It is light before 5am – great if you get up early to work, but not if you want to stay up past 10pm. Sunset is around 6:30pm.

Beattie has promised a vote on the issue next year to see if consensus has changed since 1992. This is a good move. Queensland should have time zones that suit the majority. The problem is that the vote is likely to reveal a very clear geographical preference, with the majority of people in the south east preferring daylight saving and the others the status quo. One way to solve this problem is to split Queensland into two time zones. The southern and eastern part would get the benefits of daylight savings and the northern and eastern parts would retain the existing system.

In any case, for us it is really not a big deal. We live more by the sun than a time zone. Tobias in particular is guided by the sun, although he gets up around 6am at the moment. However, as a consequence of the early sunrise I have shifted my morning routine and now get up at 5am.

There is a fairly detailed Wikipedia entry on daylight saving here and an Australian specific entry here.