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SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:15 pm
by Maximus
I'm interested to hear thoughts on this. Once again, the issue of SA's time zone has come up, accompanied by the suggestion that SA should align itself with the eastern states. I think it was the former Business SA CEO, Roger Vaughan, who used to bang the drum about this periodically, too.
SA a 'laughing stock' due to 30-min zone; it must get in line with eastern states, says UCL CEO David Travers

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/ ... 6471666610
My own view is that this is a bad idea. Yes, the half-hour time zone is silly. But aligning us with the eastern states makes sense only from a national business point of view, and not really anything else. Our natural time zone is UTC +9. Aligning us to UTC +10 would further exacerbate the morning darkness problems at the end of daylight saving and would further homogenise us with the eastern states, when arguably what we really want to be doing is differentiating ourselves as a unique location and destination. UTC +9 would make more sense from an international point of view, as it would put us in the same time zone as Japan and South Korea, and only 1 hour ahead of China.

Thoughts?

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:27 pm
by Will
Considering Perth is 2 hours behind the eastern states, are they a bigger joke than us?

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 12:34 pm
by Nathan
I absolutely agree with you Maximus - in fact I've bored many people over the years with my arguments for a UTC +9 timezone. While we're at it, we can lose daylight savings.

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 1:24 pm
by crawf
I'm torn on this, for businesses and media viewers this would be seen as a positive. It can be extremely annoying that you have to avoid all modes of social media and even the internet if you don't want to see the outcome in a television show that is being broadcasted live in the eastern states.

Or even live news telecasts that show breaking news a half n hour after it has happened (I feel extremely sorry for WA). Not that any of this is a serious issue for a change to DST, but still annoying.
Nathan wrote:I absolutely agree with you Maximus - in fact I've bored many people over the years with my arguments for a UTC +9 timezone. While we're at it, we can lose daylight savings.
I've always been a big fan of DLS and glad it was extended. Though it is confusing when a country of 21 million becomes a landscape of at least five different time zones. It's also amusing and odd when SA is a half n hour ahead of QLD for half the year.

During DLS
NSW/ACT/VIC/TAS - 11+
SA - 10.5+
QLD - 10+
NT - 9.5+
WA - 8+

Non DLS
NSW/ACT/VIC/QLD/TAS - 10+
SA/NT - 9.5+
WA - 8+

In truth there is actually six timezones during DLS with WA actually having two. :O

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:16 pm
by rhino
Nathan wrote: While we're at it, we can lose daylight savings.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooo!

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:19 pm
by Ben
rhino wrote:
Nathan wrote: While we're at it, we can lose daylight savings.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooo!
+ 1

I have NEVER ever heard one good reason to scrap daylight saving. it is by far the best time of the year. You go home from work and you can still see the world. I feel for the poor people in Perth.

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:43 pm
by Nathan
Ben wrote:
rhino wrote:
Nathan wrote: While we're at it, we can lose daylight savings.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooo!
+ 1

I have NEVER ever heard one good reason to scrap daylight saving. it is by far the best time of the year. You go home from work and you can still see the world. I feel for the poor people in Perth.
It screws with my body clock every single year. Instead of a ridiculous sleight of hand and changing clocks, I much prefer the notion that people who want an extra hour in the evening to enjoy the sunshine should just instead start work an hour earlier.

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:52 pm
by Ben
Nathan wrote:It screws with my body clock every single year. Instead of a ridiculous sleight of hand and changing clocks, I much prefer the notion that people who want an extra hour in the evening to enjoy the sunshine should just instead start work an hour earlier.
Yes, thats a viable option to most employers...

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 2:56 pm
by crawf
You could also use the argument that it's actually more safer during DLS to a small extent. Due to people being in full daylight when travelling home from work etc, especially walking alone from bus stops and train stations.

All up I would be lost without DLS.

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 3:35 pm
by Aidan
crawf wrote:You could also use the argument that it's actually more safer during DLS to a small extent. Due to people being in full daylight when travelling home from work etc, especially walking alone from bus stops and train stations.
They are in full daylight in summer whether or not we have daylight savings. It could be seen as an argument to keep using a timezone ahead of one based on our geographical position, but ISTR people are actually more accident prone in the morning.
All up I would be lost without DLS.
What about synchronizing with Queensland? Only ever half an hour different from what we have now, but no more need to keep adjusting clocks!

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 4:00 pm
by [Shuz]
I don't get time zones at all.

What difference does it make if the sun rises at 5:45am or 1:37am or 4:12pm?

Those who work the stock-standard 7.5 hour day '9-5er Monday to Friday' would still naturally wake up around the time the sun rises, go to work roughly 2 hours after the sun's up, work 7.5 hours, and then bugger off home and enjoy the rest of the day winter, summer or whatnot.

Farmers whinging about having to get up at 5am in the West Coast because the sun's up then and not at 6am. So what? It's all an artifical notion either way.

Lunacy.

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 5:52 pm
by Nathan
[Shuz] wrote:Lunacy.
Actually, it's to do with the Sun, not the Moon.

:wink:

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:14 pm
by claybro
Absolutely agree. Should move to our proper time zone. Aligning with the Eastern states will not solve our perceived isolation from the East, and the current half hour difference neither alignes us with the East, or puts us in our correct time zone and achieves nothing. Perth actually seems to benefit from it's large time difference as many businesses cannot rely on Eastern states closing time, and therefore there is more opportunity for local office operations instead of relying on staff from "head office back East" to handle enquiries.

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:47 pm
by neoballmon
I'm for this. I have always thought it's silly for us to have a half hour timezone, would've at least made more sense as +9. But +10 would definately be a lot better, to link with the majority of the country.
Surely it couldn't cause too many issues, it would only be half an hour.. half of what we change it for DLS, and would only occur once, so after a couple of summers and winters, we won't even notice the difference anymore.
If they time it right (when we turn the clocks back an hour), then we will just have to turn the clock back half an hour. Again, seeming relatively natural.

I also think we should keep DLS through.


And Slightly off topic, would NT join us if we changed, or would they stay at +9.5?

Re: SA's Time Zone

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 8:13 am
by Hooligan
What about this idea, if we just went to +10 and got rid of DLS?