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!

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.

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.

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.

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 ?

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.