2018/13: Should daylight saving be abolished?
Introduction to the media issue
Video clip at right: On November 2, 2018, 23, the American ABC News televised a report on different Californians' views on instituting daylight saving time all year round.What they said...
'I can tell you unambiguously now, there are social and environmental costs associated with daylight savings time because of the pollution emissions and carbon dioxide emissions contributing to climate change'
Matthew Kotchen, a University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor
'The chamber is fully supportive of adopting daylight saving here on the Gold Coast, not least because of our geographical positioning, because of the impact it has on our close neighbours and staff just over the border'
The Gold Coast Chamber of Commerce expressing its support for Queensland adopting daylight saving time
The issue at a glance
On November 6, 2018, as part of the United States Midterm Election, nearly 60 per cent of Californian voters supported Proposition 7, a measure that gives the state legislature the ability to establish Daylight Saving Time (DST) all year-round.
This would mean no more turning clocks an hour forward or back - clocks would remain an hour forward, even in the wintertime, giving more darkness in the morning and less at night.For the permanent establishment of daylight saving to come into effect the change will have to be supported by a two-thirds majority vote in the Californian state legislature.
Two months earlier, on August 31, 2018, the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, announced that millions of Europeans surveyed on having DST operate all year had voted in support of the proposal. 84 per cent of 4.6 million respondents called for ending the spring and autumn clock change. The Commission's proposal requires support from the 28 national governments and Members of the European Parliament to become law.
Despite these evidences of the popularity of DST, the arrangement remains controversial in all those jurisdictions where it is in place. In Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland do not adopt DST each year, putting them out of step with other Australian states and territories.
There has been consistent agitation from Queensland's business community to have the state adopt daylight saving time when the southern states do so. However, there is opposition from northern Queenslanders, with some threatening to secede from the south should it be introduced. Former Premier, Anna Bligh, rejected a serious push to have DST introduced in the state late last decade, because of the extreme opposition of some of the residents of the state's rural hinterland.