"Outspoken"

Daylight Saving in Western Australia.
(Written 5 Nov 2003)

*** Update 2006: WA is now trialing daylight savings for 3 years, starting Octoober 2006, 2007 and 2008. Great news! I hope the West AUstralian public embraces it, get's used to it, and perhaps even begins to see the benefits of it.  Back to my original 2003 article...

I have always been a great fan of daylight saving, and have fond memories as a kid growing up with it in the summertime, with it staying light for ages, and the sun finally setting well after 8pm. But at some stage in the 1980-90's, daylight savings were abolished in Western Australia. There has been 3 Referendums on the topic, with all 3 returning a "NO" answer to the question... see the results at the bottom of the following page...

http://www.waec.wa.gov.au/state/factSheet18.htm?section=state&content=factSheet18.htm

All I know is that I want it back, and it seems that nearly every one that I speak to also wants it back.

What is the point of the sun coming up at 5:30am, when I don't get out of bed until 6:30 or even 7am, so I can be at work by 8:30am. A whole hour to hour and a half of daylight is waisted. And when I get home after a hard day's work at say 6pm, by the time I have got changed out of my work cloths, grabbed a bite to eat, there is not enough useful daylight time to get stuck in to any activities around the home, be it gardening, playing outdoors with the kids, servicing my car, going to the beach etc etc.

And this is only part of it. At work, my computer business deals allot with eastern states companies, but given the geographical time difference of 2 hours, added to the fact that they DO have daylight savings, means that we are actually 3 hours behind. This means that whenever we need to have dealings with them, we have to make sure we call before 2pm our time. In fact, if placing orders for overnight despatch, they often need the orders by about 2pm their time to make a "same day despatch", and hence we have to have placed the order with them by 11am, which is often impossible.

Another argument in favour of daylight savings, is the reduction in electricity consumption, given that there is effectively 1 hour less of lighting that is needed each evening (which is based on the reasonable assumption that the bulk of the population is still asleep for the first hour of daylight each summers day, where daylight savings is not in use).

So, I say "bring back daylight savings to Western Australia".

It seems that I am not alone in my quest to rally the population to bring it back. Here are some other articles on the topic...

http://members.iinet.net.au/~jacob/daylight.html

Currently, this is where the various states & territories of Australia stand:

Recently, a Liberal MP, Matt Birney (member for the Goldfields seat of Kalgoorlie) has said that he will introduce a private member's bill into parliament in an effort to have daylight saving re-introduced, providing he can get support of his parliamentary colleagues. I, for one, hope he is successful, and hope that the current Premier, Dr.Gallop takes note of the growing public interest in Daylight Saving.

I just hope that the farmers also re-consider their stance, as traditionally they have been against the shifting of time forward by 1 hour. Surely they realise that they can just ignore it and carry on with their normal routine. The cows will still head over to be milked at the same time, it is just that your watch on your wrist will read an hour later!

Update 1 Feb 2005.
With the state elections looming, a new political party has been formed, called the "Daylight Saving Party". www.daylightsavingparty.org.au

 These pages were last updated on 1 Jul 2006.