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The Forum > Article Comments > Daylight saving beyond the fading curtains > Comments

Daylight saving beyond the fading curtains : Comments

By John Ridd, published 20/9/2007

There are some very good reasons not to introduce daylight saving in Queensland.

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Sir, Many thanks for a most informative article. However, like you, I despair of those who can not perform simple addition and subtraction; your article would be far "too hard" for them.
Posted by Johnno, Thursday, 20 September 2007 10:15:40 AM
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The term "Daylight Saving" is itself a gross misrepresentation loaded with spin. The correct term is clock molestation. and it is favoured by the kind of sad plodders who feel an overwhelming desire to have their bowel movements in sync with people in Sydney and Melbourne. That is their choice but they have no right to impose their pathetic psychological crutches on those of us who are not so emotionally encumbered.

And it begs the question, how many time zones are there in Europe? And what evidence is there that the mass movement of tourists and multifold business interactions are disadvantaged by these time zones. Answer - ZIPPO.

But perversely, I do look forward to the day when compulsory clock molestation is imposed on regional Queensland. For that act will mark the beginning of the end of a single state. It will speed up the day when the South East goes its own congested way leaving the real Queensland to manage its own destiny, in its own regional parliaments, free of metrocrap.
Posted by Perseus, Thursday, 20 September 2007 10:43:31 AM
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Ah, how my mind’s curtains get faded by erudite arguments over “daylight saving’. Faded to limp lassitude, brought on by the sophisticated precession and nutation of semantics.

Cobblers to all the high-falutin arguments.

Putting it plainly and simply: I don’t like “daylight saving” because it initiates a warmed-ant-nest activity of otherwise dormant humans at the wrong time. Just at the height of nature’s quiet greeting of the coming day. Ah the satisfaction in the days when that was my sole companion! Hmm, a bit like sex, I suppose.

Daylight saving ruins such soulful peace by forcing upon us a Bulldogs’ bonding session type of communal activity at a time while nature is at its best. Just for the purpose of loading one end of the daily see-saw of working hours. Thereby shuffling all our smelly bodies together, where it was previously avoidable. And what does such heavy cost enable? – maybe enhanced attendance for supplication at the local Presbyterian Kirk or Islamic Mosque. Heaven forbid, perhaps even to spreading the cheeks over seats at some football/cricket gladiatorial event.

Save on daylight? Get up at dawn, retire at dusk.
Otherwise, just don’t impose upon the social proclivities of others. Nothing complex about it.
Posted by colinsett, Thursday, 20 September 2007 11:21:25 AM
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I am in agreement with the author, based on recent West Australian experience. In the West we are in the process of having to endure a three year trial of so called “daylight saving.” The state parliament voted for it to help two disgruntled politician one from the labour side and one liberal. Therefore in my terminology this infliction should be nominated, “politicians time.”

The amount of daylight is dictated by geography specifically; latitude and longitude and of course time of year. Longitude has determined that local Perth time is always 20 minutes in front of zone time. At latitude 32° S mornings become dark when “politician time” starts. The wonderful early mornings are lost. The late afternoon and evenings drag on. If one enjoys the evening meal when sun those goes down, (as I do). Late meal time is immediately followed by bed time.

Even more so, the late afternoons and evenings are usually the hottest part of day. How does the Carpenter Labour Government respond to this misery? Why by advising their citizens to voluntary switch off air conditioner use between 3.0 pm and 6.0 pm. The state is short of power. If the Labour people supported by the Greens had there would be a mandatory ban on air-conditioners. I suspect the daylight saving enthusiasts in WA have never heard of death from hyperthermia. In the interest of economy and saving electric power “politician time “ought to be abandoned.

It is beyond the intellectual capacity of our labour politicians to understand that piddle power, sorry green power, will never meet the power requirements of a modern industrial society. But the overwhelming argument in favour of nuclear power is an argument for another day.
Posted by anti-green, Thursday, 20 September 2007 1:53:35 PM
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Anti green has put the case nicely. Despite referendums showing that the majority hated Daylight saving and wanted nothing to do with it , the state Labor Government decided otherwise.
You must realise that if you elect a dictatorial government ,you have no say, referendum or no referendum.

The Dictator says;"No!"
Posted by mickijo, Thursday, 20 September 2007 3:30:24 PM
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In NZ, one could still read a newspaper outside at 10pm (in Invercargill). In Auckland, the daylight saving (DLS) meant a little more 'warm' (if it is possible) evening hours to do something after work. Over there I remember heading off to school in the dark and it was 7.30am plus. I am an Aussie born kiwi.
In Australia, I miss DLS. I do some night shift work as a nurse. In the height of summer it is broad daylight at 4.30am (what a waste). I do see the argument for most of QLD to stay without DLS BUT I feel there is a real good cause, if only for businesses, that DLS be introduced on a trial for the S.E corner. I believe something of the Gold Coast 'converts' as it is, because of Sydney business links. S.E corner ought to try DSL or at least another referendum take place. The latter probably will not happen again.
Posted by Cakers, Thursday, 20 September 2007 4:16:30 PM
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Sorry but I detest daylight saving. It is actually used by very few people. School students in South Australia actually researched this and found that less than 10% of the population actually thought they used it.
I miss the quiet early mornings to get a bit of gardening done in the cool, my neighbour would like to walk the dog then, the kids grumble that they have to come home in the hottest part of the day and then set to work on homework so they cannot go out. Adults are tired and just want to have a meal and sit down in front of the telly.
The notion that we cannot cope with time differences is utter nonsense.
It does mean that more people spend more time in the sun at the worst times of the day simply because of the way their daily lives are organised. The Cancer Council advises protecting ourselves from too much sun and from the worst times of the day - and the government goes ahead and makes this even more difficult.
By the way, the kids in the west of South Australia end up going to school in the dark in summer...and this is daylight saving? Daylight stupidity more like it!
Posted by Communicat, Thursday, 20 September 2007 4:32:32 PM
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Personally, I like daylight saving. it's cooler in the mornings, and I have daylight to go for a walk after work in the evenings midweek, plus more daylight makes for a pleasanter beer and barbie with friends on weekends. And, it makes dealing with out-of-staters easier at work.

Though I've never heard anyone who believes curtains fade, some of the arguments against are almost as silly - I did hear a woman protest when it was introduced in WA that it's all very well being asked to go to work an hour earlier, but the buses don't run then.
Posted by Rhian, Thursday, 20 September 2007 4:58:04 PM
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Daylight saving is something that is of benefit to people in the latitudes of 45 to 55 degrees from the equator. Any closer, and the day is too hot anyway; any further, and there is so much daylight that there seems to be no point. The key to this problem is the desire of the business community in Queensland to set the time there to coincide with that in the southern states with whom they have dealings. This is obviously not in accord with the wishes of the people of Queensland.

What is needed, if democracy is to prevail, is for an entrenched clause to be placed in the Queensland Constitution Act to provide that standard time (10 hours ahead of Greenwich) shall be the legal time in Queensland, and that no change can be made to this without the approval of the people at a referendum.

Hopefully a political party will come to power that will enact this change.

The fate of the people of Western Australia, who have had a three year period of daylight saving forced on them by parliament,contrary to their demonstrated wishes, should be a salutary experience.
Posted by plerdsus, Thursday, 20 September 2007 7:23:20 PM
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anti-green writes:

>>piddle power, sorry green power, will never meet the power requirements of a modern industrial society.<<

You couldn't be more wrong. Never is a long time, and renewable sources already generate enormous amounts of electric power, much of it newly installed in the last decade.

The exception of course is hydroelectricity which has always powered "modern industrial society" and still produces over 20% of the world's electric power.

Renewable power overwhelmingly dominates new generation in many countries, for instance Germany where wind-power generators of a gross capacity over 20GW have been installed in recent years, and which leads the world in development of biogas and solar thermal power technology.

Wind power is now the cheapest form of newly-purchased electric generation in most parts of the world. Only in countries with exceptionally cheap fossil fuels, (the Middle East, Russia, Australia and South Africa) is wind uncompetitive. But fossil fuels will soon be in short supply worldwide, commanding high prices even where production remains cheap, and the prices of many innovative forms of renewable power generation are about to plummet.

Even here, the small subsidy represented by our very modest federal Mandatory Renewable Energy Target was said by Resources Minister Ian MacFarlane to be "working too well" in 2004:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/02/1096527990014.html

Intermittent power sources such as wind can't directly provide *all* of a country's power needs, but there is no reason why they should not provide a very large portion. Legacy "base load" steam-driven power stations, especially nuclear and coal, make integration of new intermittent sources somewhat less straightforward than where a large portion of existing generation is from hydro or gas-fired power which can easily ramp up or down to follow variable demand. I have discussed this at great length elsewhere:

http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/Message.aspx?b=70&m=10012&ps=50

This is without even discussing emerging base-load-capable renewable power technologies such as geothermal and solar thermal with overnight heat storage.

The scope for expansion of renewable electric generation in the immediate future is enormous. Do not underestimate it.
Posted by xoddam, Thursday, 20 September 2007 7:37:39 PM
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Horses for Courses. I can understand the arguments against daylight saving, but give some thought to those who work outside in the middle of Summer, particularly in the building industry. I would love to have started work at 5am in Summer and knocked off by 2pm to get out of the sun. It just depends what industry you're in. Perhaps something could be arranged just for the South East ?
Posted by snake, Thursday, 20 September 2007 8:08:53 PM
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Fear not Snake, I hear that the Libs will be taking their new 'SunChoices' policy to the election.

In a breakthrough for flexibility and fairness, you will finally be able to negotiate an individual time zone agreement, to better suit the needs of your circadian rhythm.

This will make everything simpler and more efficient.
Posted by Mercurius, Sunday, 23 September 2007 10:37:41 PM
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I don't believe anyone is advocating daylight saving for all of Queensland - that would be lunacy. So much of the state is so far north and so far west that they either dont need it or in effect already have it. Mt Isa, for example, has a clock time which runs almost thirty minutes ahead of solar time; hence they have almost thirty minutes of daylight saving 365 days of the year.

Here in Brisbane the situation is the opposite. Our clock time runs about twenty minutes behind solar time; so we have twenty minutes of daylight loosing 365 days a year. (Clock time matches solar time on the 150th meridien, which runs a bit west of Goondiwindi.)

The sensible proposition is for daylight saving in some portion of the south-east corner - greater Brisbane and the Gold and Sunshine coasts. This would take advantage of the moderate increase in daylight hours at this latitude, but correct for the daylight loosing we presently experience.

The WA situation, by the way, is quite different. With solar time matching clock time somewhere near Kalgoorlie, Perth enjoys about twenty minutes of daylight saving all year round. So there is much less incentive in the major population centre.
Posted by Reynard, Monday, 24 September 2007 1:20:28 PM
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Thank you … thank you to OLO and to Mr Ridd for providing an all-too-rare essay that shows how the ‘other’ side REALLY thinks - instead of all the faded curtain/confused cows/Dark Ages mythology unfairly attributed to daylight saving opponents.

A few years back I did an analysis on daylight saving in the Queensland media as part of a college assignment. I found that, out of more than 100 articles covering daylight saving over a ten-year period, ALL of them were either strongly in favour of daylight saving or skewed the subject from a pro-daylight saving perspective (e.g. giving an ridiculously unbalanced importance to comments from pro-DLS spokespeople; failing to question irrational pro-DLS arguments; not including any anti-DLS arguments at all or, if included, leaving them only to the final paragraphs; promoting a mythical urban versus rural divide; portraying DLS opponents as irrational, childlike, backward and/or credulous etc, etc).

Over the time period analysed, I did NOT find a single article that was written from an anti-DLS perspective.

Given the amount of bias, obfuscation and misinformation on this topic in the Queensland (and Australian) media, it’s nothing short of extraordinary that at least half the Queensland public has managed to maintain a clear-sighted position on the overwhelming unsuitability of daylight saving to the state’s latitude, longitude and near-homogenous seasonal daylight patterns. Sadly, if the state ends up being split into two totally unnecessary time zones, it will be a triumph of media manipulation over common sense.
Posted by MLK, Sunday, 30 September 2007 6:15:10 PM
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The only way that two time zones will work in Queensland is when there are two or more states in Queensland. To have a government delivering services under a different time regime is a recipe for serious under-delivery. Instead of the already unsatisfactory 7.5 hours of access to services, regional Queenslanders will only have an effective 6.5 hours in which to deal with any functions of a policy or head-office nature.

The regions are already seriously disadvantaged by the tyranny of distance and two time zones will reduce effective access to 86.6% of that already reduced level. Give the North Queenslanders their own government in Cardwell, and the non-SE Queenslanders their own government in Gayndah, and this "problem" is resolved once and for all.
Posted by Perseus, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 12:05:08 PM
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