[H-GEN] Brisbane's timezone

Sarah Walters sarah at walters.id.au
Mon Apr 7 01:02:31 EDT 2008


All,

I find this discussion incredibly frustrating, and I believe it shows just
how insulated SE Queensland is from the rest of the state.

On 07/04/2008, Nick Kwiatkowski <nickolas at au1.ibm.com> wrote:

> > There's quite a number of people who'd like to have DST in Queensland,
> > but because of our genetically inferior cows, the dairy farmers have put
> > up a fight to keep sanity out of the Queensland Government, and thus far
> > it has worked exceedingly well.  Pretty much any person involved in any
> > business in Queensland that deals with our southern states can see the
> > benefit in Qld DST.


It's got nothing to do with the cows. There was a trial of daylight savings
years ago in Queensland. Afterwards there was a referendum to get rid of it.
Have a look at a map of Queensland some time. We are at the *south* and
*east* of Queensland. The further west you are, the later the sun comes up,
and the later it comes down. As you go further north the days and nights
become more similar in length, meaning that you don't have the incredibly
long days of summer. The vast majority of Queensland is both further west
and further north than Brisbane. Cairns is a perfect example of this. This
morning the sun came up half an hour later in Cairns than it did in
Brisbane. It will also go down about half an hour later. If you move Cairns
time back by an hour, people are waking up in the dark. The sun wouldn't
come up until 7:30am.  When they had the trial all the schools had to change
their opening times during the summer months so the children weren't having
to wait *in the dark* for the school bus. So effectively they were on a
split time zone anyway. In Mount Isa it would be worse - as it is the sun
comes up at 6:50. With daylight savings time it would be 7:50. Brisbane is
at the extreme south-east of the time zone, not the average. Just because
it's the biggest population centre doesn't mean that everyone else should be
disregarded.

I recognise the arguments about business, but I'll point out that Adelaide
and Perth are in different time zones. I work for a company whose main
office is in New Jersey. They're 14 hours behind us, but we're quite capable
of collaboration without the Australian office having to switch to a night
shift. An offset of one hour is not going to kill us. In fact, it's an extra
hour every day that multi-eastern-state businesses can answer the telephone
for their customers. An intelligent PABX such as Asterisk running on a unix
box (see? I'm on topic!) is quite capable of routing calls differently based
on the time of day.

Before assuming that everyone outside SE Queensland is a farmer (most
aren't) or that the government is made up of idiots (you voted for them),
please take the time to educate yourself on the issues. I personally would
love to see daylight savings in south-east Queensland. I just feel that my
personal convenience shouldn't override sanity for those who don't live
here.

Regards,
Sarah Walters
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