Talk:Time in Australia

The table: "Time in Oceania" - serious errors
The table: "Time in Oceania" has serious errors in it. Those errors cause numerous of its wikilinks to show up as red - invalid links. For example, look at the one for Fiji. I do not know how to, and I haven't been able to figure out how to, correct the glaring errors that are in such tables. Would someone please carry out these corrections? Oceana also includes the Philippines, Ceylon, part of Malaysia, Brunei, Ocean Island, the Andaman Islands, the Nicobar Islands, the Seychelles, the Volcano Islands (belonging to Japan) and Palmyra Atoll, a permanent dependency of the United States. On the other hand, Hawaii is neither a dependency nor a territory of any country, but rather it is an integral part of the United States (since 1959). There are two different Christmas Islands in two different oceans. 98.81.12.114 (talk) 18:17, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Daylight savings time
A good start on the daylight savings stuff, User:Chuq. Here are a couple of helpful pages of further info I found while researching the Australian Time Zones, but I haven't gotten around to digesting them yet:   --Russell E 13:30, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure that the use of S for summer is incorrect, eg. AEST -> Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC+10) and not Australian Eastern Summer Time (would be UTC+11). Australian Parliament

--RobBrisbane 21:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Alternate proposal
I have seen this alternate time zone proposal somewhere before - on TV about 10 years ago, I'm sure - but I can't remember where from - does anyone recognise it?

Changes involve:
 * A vertical line just west of Adelaide. West of the line is +8, east of the line is +10.
 * A horizontal line just north of the Sunshine Coast. North of the line has no DLS, south of the line does.
 * DLS changeover date is the same as what Tasmania has now.

Pros:
 * Two zones normally, four zones over summer
 * Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane are in the same zone all the time.
 * Perth is always the same time difference (2 hours) behind the south-east.
 * No Queenslanders urban/rural DLS division. (or very little)
 * No Tweed Heads/Gold Coast confusion.
 * No half-hour time zones.

Cons:
 * Some states and territories split in half.

-- Chuq 00:28, 29 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Maybe it's related to the "zonal system" mentioned in this article? --Russell E 01:50, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Daylight saving in WA
What's with WA? Most of the population is at a similar latitude to Sydney/Melbourne etc. but no DLS? I always thought the reason for NT and Qld not having was because of the low latitudes, meaning the day length didn't differ as much between summer and winter (as opposed to in Tassie it gets dark anywhere from 4.30pm AEST in winter to 9pm AEDT in summer!), but what is WA's excuse? -- Chuq 00:28, 29 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Note that Sydney, being on the eastern side of its time zone, is actually slightly behind its solar time: compared with the sun, DST only pushes it ~ 50 minutes ahead. Perth, being on the western side of its time zone, is always ~ 20 minutes ahead of solar time, and DST would push it further ahead. A similar argument can be forwarded for the bulk of (the land mass of) Queensland. Robbak 05:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I always just thought it was superstition and a poor understanding of time. The Abolish Daylight Saving Committee has been in the news the last few days, and I heard a few anti-daylight savings callers on the radio yesterday. They were a bunch of crackpots. You may remember Flo Bjelke-Petersen's claim that it make the curtains fade. The ADSC's current line is that it causes a host of health and social problems, mainly, it seems, because it's dark for people who get up before 6 AM. Strangely it seems to be rural people who complain most, when in fact they're the ones most able to set their own schedule and so most able to disregard the time that happens to show on the clock...  One point I do remember is it means that schoolchildren are walking home in the hottest part of the day under daylight savings, probably a valid criticism.


 * The reasons cited by people on the radio don't matter. What does matter is that the people of Western Australia said no three times, and the state government should take heed of that.  rst 23:20, 24 October 2006 (UTC)


 * This person of Western Australia didn't say no, because he was 8 years old at the time of the last referendum. I think it's about time it came up again, because I'm pretty sure there's plenty of people like me who think it's a great idea but weren't able to vote at the last one :) -Jasonb 11:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * There were many many laws passed before you or I could vote that still affect both of us. How many of those laws do you want to revisit every time someone gets to voting age? rst 12:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * How many of them were there referendums on? I'd be quite happy to revisit every single one in WA's history. Especially that one about trading hours. Oh wait, I was already of voting age at that one :) -Jasonb 12:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Very few of them had referenda. Probably only this one, AFAIK.  It seems odd that the one issue on which we've held referenda, the results of those referenda are being ignored.  rst 00:56, 26 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Joining Australian Federation, 2x Liquor licensing, 2x prohibition, secission, 3x daylight saving, and trading hours. See here. Anyway it's just a trial in the lead up to another referendum to see what the views are today, not (in an arguably very different) 14 years ago. -Jasonb 09:31, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Btw this page has a bit of history but simply cites referenda results as the "reason" why WA and Qld said no. --Russell E 01:49, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Revisiting this, one of the main recurring features of the referendums (as well as the four in WA, there was one in QLD in 1992 and another in NSW in 1976) is that support for daylight saving is significantly lower in Perth than in Sydney or south east Queensland. For various reasons people in Perth are not as enthusiastic about DST as their eastern counterparts, suggesting slightly different lifestyle patterns that mean that DST will have a different effect. For example the Fremantle Doctor afternoon wind stirs up the wind and so morning beach visits are preferable to afternoon ones and DST limits the scope for this and other morning exercise activities. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:49, 20 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Perth beaches all face west so a late-afternoon summer visit to the beach after work is solar-wise a very different experience qualitatively.Eregli bob (talk) 07:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

In what year was daylight introduce?
In what year was daylight introduce in Australia ? I haven't been able to find this information (yet).


 * Here ya go, knock yourself out. We should try to add all the relevant info to the article, because all that great info from the NSC leaflets appears on the verge of falling off the internet (see also the external link in the article... both are linked via archive.org, no sign of those leaflets on the current incarnation of the site)--Russell E 18:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * We've had daylight for quite a while. Ever since the continent was formed, in fact.  But only during the day time.  :)  rst 12:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Saving(s) time
Have replaced the few references to the grammatically incorrect Daylight Savings with Daylight saving --Jabberwalkee 16:43, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * What's gramatically incorrect about "Daylight Savings Time"? It's just as correct grammar, and it appears to be more widespread.  If you can show evidence that "Daylight Saving Time" is the correct terminology in Australia, please do.  Otherwise I think this change should be reverted. Groogle (talk) 02:06, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, found it. It's officially Daylight Saving Time.  That doesn't make the alternative gramatically incorrect, though. Groogle (talk) 02:09, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Federal powers and the constitution
Interestingly, the federal government could probably legislate for time in the states and override the states' legislations, given that section 51(xv) of the constitution gives parliament "power to make laws ... with respect to ... Weights and measures". I haven't heard of that mooted anywhere, and federal governments have kept out of the daylight saving arguments, but it may be worth mentioning in the article. rst 23:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Moved Section

 * I have moved the following from the Daylight saving time around the world article because of excessive length. I placed it here rather than trying to integrate it into the text of the article itself. It has sources, but be aware that the contributor (User talk:Catsanos C) has been cited for vandalism on other Wiki sites, and that he has a tendency to "forget" to added all the reference tags, which tends to blank out large sections of the article. Thanks. - BillCJ 22:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

In Australia, the decision to implement daylight saving time is left up to each state or territory. Some states or territories implement it and some do not. The states which do observe DST choose their own implementation dates, although Prime Minister John Howard made a request on July 14, 2006 that the states and territories which implement DST all observe a uniform period.

New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory and South Australia apply DST on a yearly basis. Tasmania commence daylight saving on the first Sunday in October, while other states begin on the last Sunday in October. All states which observe DST end on the last Sunday in March. All states which observe DST turn clocks forward from 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m., and turn clocks back from 3:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m..

In 2000, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and the Australian Capital Territory brought the start date of DST forward by two months to the last Sunday in August (August 27) due to the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, New South Wales. Likewise, in 2006, all five states observing DST (New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory and South Australia) extended the end date of DST by one week to the first Sunday in April (April 2) due to the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Victoria.

In 2006, the Western Australia Parliament approved a three year daylight saving trial, which will run from the summer of 2006-2007 until the summer of 2008-2009, after which a referendum will be held to determine if it should be put in place permanently. The move towards a trial was backed with large amounts of media coverage. DST will start on the first Sunday in December (December 3) in 2006, and on the last Sunday in October in the other two years; it will end on the last Sunday in March in all three years. Queensland do not officially have DST. Queensland experimented with DST for a year or two in the early 1970s, and again in the early 1990s, but it was abandoned after a majority of residents voted against its introduction in a 1992 referendum. The Queensland state government will, however, do some research in early 2007 into the possibility of a referendum on DST in the south-east of Queensland, but are having difficulty knowing where to draw the line.

Like Queensland, the Northern Territory also do not officially observe DST. One of the main reasons is that they are on a time zone of GMT+9:30, despite being on a longitude of GMT+8:45, which means that they could be said to be on continuous 45-minute DST. research the times for solar noon to see why the territory may be said to be on continuous 45-minute DST.

GMT or UTC
Are Australian timezones GMT based or UTC based? The terms seem to be used interchangeably here, but they are not. --HiLo48 (talk) 06:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tonsofpcs (talk • contribs) 22:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC).


 * Is that an important distinction? I doubt if there's as much as one second difference between those times. My understanding is that UTC is (effectively) the new international name for Greenwich Mean Time. --Uncle Ed (talk) 16:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

AEST
Is it just me, or does this page not clearly state what AEST actually is? Is it +8, +9.3 or +10? AEST redirects here and it mentioned AEST and EST, and East is obviously +10, but the fact that the page doesn't state what AEST is in terms of time is sort of bad form considering it is Australias standard time in the context of the entire world. I would add it myself, but I am not exactly sure that AEST is +10, so I do not want to add to the confusion HiLo48 (talk) 06:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by JayKeaton (talk • contribs) 18:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC) To the best of my knowledge, NSW, ACT, Victoria and Tasmania use AEST for about half of the year, and Queensland uses it all year. -Anonymous person who wants a Wikipedia account. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.149.115.83 (talk) 03:01, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

TIME ZONE MAP SUMMER TIME
The time zone map of Australia during summer time needs to be reverted back to the old one created in 2005, since Western Australia no longer observes the practice of daylight saving. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chris SSIE1 (talk • contribs) 04:52, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

THE REAL REASON WHY?
I'm concerned about the statement "Queensland and the Northern Territory have not adopted daylight saving because the seasonal differences in daylight become less pronounced as one moves closer to the equator." They don't have it because their politicians have decided to not implement it. We don't actually know why not. Chances are, the real reason is because of where they think critical votes lie. HiLo48 (talk) 06:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by HiLo48 (talk • contribs) 07:07, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Can someone who knows what they are talking about please correct ambiguous sentence up?

"The time in the southeastern states become UTC+11, using "Eastern" in the time zone name rather than "Central", with the abbreviations being EST, EDT, AEST, or AEDT."

What does it mean? eg should Victorian time when on daylight saving time be still called AEST still or AEDT or what? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumnut (talk • contribs) 06:14, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Display Problem
There is a problem with this page. No text after the "Moved Section" section is being displayed. Re-saving it all to see if it reappears. HiLo48 (talk) 06:44, 23 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by HiLo48 (talk • contribs) 06:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Whoops, I think I confused SineBot. My earlier re-saving didn't fix the problem, but I found the real culprit, a missing /ref tag in the "Moved Section" section. It's there now and everything seems OK HiLo48 (talk) 06:56, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

24 hour clock in Oz
The "24 hour clock" page says:
 * "The 12-hour clock is, however, still dominant in a handful of countries,[1] particularly in Australia, Canada (except Quebec), the Philippines and the United States"

But "Time in Australia" makes no mention of 12 vs 24 hour times. Should be included surely? I will if I have time. Anyone else can of course! Part of the the 'reference' used is the "Common Locale Data Repository", and "Date and time notation by country-Australia" basicallly Wikipedia articles, which is not very helpful as those articles lack citations for the relevant sections! --220.101.28.25 (talk) 02:31, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Rules relating to time
I deleted this section, as it added nothing to the article. The two-paragraph section can be summarized as follows: when someone does business with someone in a different time zone, they must be careful to complete the task on time. Well, duh.76.113.105.186 (talk) 02:22, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Caiguna is not in CWST
In Revision of 15:29, 7 October 2009, Dacium changed the text to include Caiguna in the Central Western Time Zone. This was not the case the last time I passed by, and Dacium has not given any reason for this change. For documentary evidence to the contrary see. On that occasion I was travelling west from Eucla to Norseman. The photos of the sign were taken about 12 minutes before the photo in Caiguna, so it must be about 20 km east of Caiguna. If anybody wants to revert this change, please provide evidence that the situation has changed. Groogle (talk) 02:02, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Time Zone
The term "Time Zone" is misused throughout; Time Zone is rightly governed by Standard (Winter) Time, and has nothing to do with Summer Time a.k.a. DST. See Time Zone and Standard time, etc. 94.30.84.71 (talk) 20:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I think a time zone should be a region of land. We may also speak of a sort of "Time" observed in such a region, especially during a specific period of the year. Maybe Jimp can help me fix this language up. (I'm also making a disambig page at Eastern Time which links to Time in Australia.) --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)


 * maybe you think it should but it is not and it should not. your point of view is famous in USA (only). But officially the DST consists of adopting a new timezone during summer. (The "zone" is virtual, not geographical). And for history reasons many countries don't have the time of their geographical location. It can'ts be "geographical" it needs to be more virtual. You may look at a reference as http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/city.html?n=179 (ex of New york) and you'll see the name of timezone changes with DST. It's not EST all year long but EST/EDT (s for standard and d for daylight in this one). I remind you that (even in USA) some cities does not observe DST (never) and all the countries in the world don't change at same date. So you have to say the actual time (including DST) so the rest of the World knows your actual time. It's the only purpose of saying a timezone offset afterall ! (becomes useless if you let them guess if they have to add or not something else for that region). Better to say "new york time, look for it yourself" otherwise. At least that will avoid misunderstanding.  DC2en (talk) 06:37, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Daylight savings
You gotta wade through a lot of text to find out where daylight saving time is in effect. Couldn't that be made a bit more prominent? Like:
 * Only X and the Y's observe daylight saving time. It starts on T here and T2 there.

Just a suggestion. --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)


 * The table in Time in Australia jumped out at me fairly quickly without my reading the preceding text first. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the section is easy to find, but that's not solving my problem.

I want to know when and where daylight saving time begins and ends in Australia.

Time remains constant year round, except in the south-central and south-east parts. I'd like to know what month and week it jumps forward and/or falls back. --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:25, 20 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The beginning of the aforementioned section points you to to a "main article" of Daylight saving time in Australia. I think what you seek is there. [PS: "falls back" sounds American to me, seemingly using the verb fall to match the season fall. That doesn't work in Australia. That season is simply called autumn.] HiLo48 (talk) 19:53, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Excellent comment. I must make sure I don't apply "top of the world" standards to "down under" issues. Let Stalk Strine, mate! --Uncle Ed (talk) 16:22, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Merger proposal
Proposal: merge Daylight saving time in Australia into Time in Australia: I can see the difference in scope between the two articles, and I'm not against DST articles per se. But the "Daylight saving time in Australia" article was created in a rush by User:TZ master during a period when s/he was adding as many DST articles as possible (before s/he was blocked for suspected sock puppetry).

That article is carelessly put together, has little to no introduction, and is just a copy of content that already existed in Time in Australia. At the moment it seems superfluous.

I wouldn't be opposed to improving the DST article. This would also involve some work on the Time in Australia article – removal of duplications, proper links to related articles, etc. - Responsible? (talk) 00:07, 3 August 2012 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth I think that the DST in Australia article should stay. It may not be perfect, but there's enough information on there that it would form a large portion of the Time in Australia page, giving it perhaps undue weight.Peregrine981 (talk) 20:56, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

It could easily be a section of Time in Australia after all the redundancy is cleaned up. Eat me, I'm a red bean (take a huge bite)i've made a huge mess 11:22, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Closing - no debate or comment in almost 4 years, no adequate discussion removing merge banner from daylight saving article, if someone want to resurrect, otherwise 4 year old suggestions not acted upon seem redundant JarrahTree 03:07, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

The "Daylight saving time (DST)" section doesn't make sense
The section begins by saying "The choice to use DST or not is a matter for the governments of the individual states and territories." It then goes on to describe how they did make their own decisions. How can that happen? Is the first sentence wrong? Or did the states break the rules? HiLo48 (talk) 10:44, 26 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I noticed that also. Reading several articles about daylight saving, I notice an emphasis on whose idea it was and so forth, but often not enough on when it begins and end in the current year. I daresay most readers just want to know when to change their clocks - or what time it will be when they Skype their friends and business associates. --Uncle Ed (talk) 16:25, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

WST
The Australian government sites, and the majority of Web clock sites, all seem to use AWST. However, the IANA database abbreviation is WST. Does anyone have any info on which is the "official" abbreviation. --AlastairIrvine (talk) 07:08, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Jervis Bay Territory
JBT is missing from the table of States and Territories (and the whole page, actually). youcantryreachingme (talk) 02:06, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

South Australias attempts to 'correct' GMT+10.30
The article says "Attempts to correct these oddities in 1986 and 1994 were rejected.". Does anyone have a reference for them?

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-time-zone-change-the-politics-behind-the-push/news-story/8feeb941956d3ef4b5622463d1d3f27d talks about a "a narrowly defeated push in 1986 to split SA into two time zones," so presumably a referendum of some sort.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/referendums-throughout-sas-history/news-story/db9fc8c75e13808e626ff143235cff60 also mentions a 1986 vote on extending daylight savings.

The exact wording i quoted above appears in http://assets.yoursay.sa.gov.au/static/timezones/HILL%20Tony.pdf which gives more information on /why/ it was done in the first place but doesn't cite any references either.

I assume it is not http://dspace.flinders.edu.au/xmlui/bitstream/handle/2328/21994/0011986.pdf?sequence=1 as that was accented.

I've search around but come up dry so hoping someone has more info.

kgoetz (talk) 11:33, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Time offsets during standard time map
The colouring and positioning of text do not make it clear what time it is in NT. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.103.159 (talk) 13:22, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem may be related to the device you are using. It seems fine on my PC. HiLo48 (talk) 23:41, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Victoria moving to NSW daylight savings time
Victoria and NSW used to differ in daylight savings periods by a couple of weeks, neither willing to budge. I'm fairly certain it was Joan Kirner who immediately put a stop to that madness, moving Victoria's period to match NSW within hours of days of becoming premier. It would be good to add that to the history section, but I can't find any reference to it. Mahemoff (talk) 23:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

WA towns following ACST
Reading this article, it says that some WA towns follow ACST. Can someone update this? While I would usually do this myself, I don't know where to add it. Thanks, SHB2000 (talk) 07:24, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

What does it mean that Australia is divided into three Zones
What does it mean that Australia is divided into three Zones 160.226.241.229 (talk) 16:35, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * That's primarily what the article is telling you about. Which part of that statement is confusing you? HiLo48 (talk) 01:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)