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Right: The pro-daylight saving lobby was jubilant when DST was introduced in the US, saying that everything from the economy to national health would be improved.

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Background information

The information below is abbreviated from the Wikipedia entry titled 'Daylight Saving Time' and from the Wikipedia entry titled 'Daylight saving time in Australia'
The full entries can be accessed at and

Daylight saving time (DST) is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months so that evening daylight lasts longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use daylight saving time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring and adjust them backward in the autumn to standard time. In effect, DST causes a lost hour of sleep in the spring and an extra hour of sleep in autumn.

First proposals of daylight saving
The New Zealand entomologist, George Hudson, first proposed modern DST. Hudson's shift-work job gave him leisure time to collect insects and led him to value after-hours daylight.
In 1895 he presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society proposing a two-hour daylight-saving shift, and after considerable interest was expressed in Christchurch, he followed up with an 1898 paper. Many publications credit DST proposal to the prominent English builder and outdoorsman William Willett, who independently conceived DST in 1905 during a pre-breakfast ride, when he observed with dismay how many Londoners slept through a large part of a summer day. An avid golfer, Willett also disliked cutting short his round at dusk. His solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The Liberal Party member of parliament (MP) Robert Pearce took up Willett's proposal, introducing the first Daylight Saving Bill to the House of Commons on February 12, 1908. A select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearce's bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the United Kingdom until his death in 1915.

The adoption of daylight saving time around the world
Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, was the first city in the world to enact DST on July 1, 1908. This was followed by Orillia, Ontario, introduced by William Sword Frost while mayor from 1911 to 1912.
The first states to adopt DST nationally were those of the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary commencing April 30, 1916 as a way to conserve coal during wartime. Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed. Russia and a few other countries waited until the next year, and the United States adopted daylight saving in 1918.
Broadly speaking, most jurisdictions abandoned daylight saving time in the years after the war ended in 1918. However, many different places adopted it for periods of time during the following decades and it became common during World War II. It became widely adopted, particularly in North America and Europe, starting in the 1970s as a result of the 1970s energy crisis. Since then, the world has seen many enactments, adjustments, and repeals.

Daylight savings time in Australia
The choice of whether to use daylight saving time (DST) in Australia is a matter for the individual states and territories. However, during World War I and World War II all states and territories had daylight saving. In 1968 Tasmania became the first state since the war to practise daylight saving. In 1971, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory followed Tasmania by observing daylight saving. Western Australia and the Northern Territory did not. Queensland abandoned daylight saving time in 1972. Queensland and Western Australia have observed daylight saving over the past 40 years from time to time on trial bases.
New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia observe DST every year. This has resulted in three time zones becoming five during the daylight-saving period. South Australia time becomes UTC+10:30, called Central Daylight Time (CDT), possibly with "Australia" prefixed (ACDT). The time in the southeastern states becomes UTC+11, using 'Eastern' in the time zone name, Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), respectively Australia Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT).
Officially, the change to and from DST takes place at 2:00 am local standard time (which is 3:00 am DST) on the appropriate Sunday. Of the states that observe DST, most began on the last Sunday in October, and ended on the last Sunday in March, until 2008. Tasmania, owing to its further southern latitude began DST earlier, on the first Sunday in October, and ended on the first Sunday of April. On 12 April 2007, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory agreed to common starting and finishing dates for DST. From the 2008/09 period, the start of DST in these states and in South Australia commences on the first Sunday in October and ends on the first Sunday in April. Western Australia became the only state to observe daylight saving from the last Sunday in October to the last Sunday in March. Since 2009 Western Australia no longer observes daylight saving.
Queensland (AEST UTC+10), Northern Territory (ACST UTC+9:30) and Western Australia (AWST UTC+8) do not observe DST.