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.

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.

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.