Is daylight saving good for Australia?
Introduction to the media issue
Video clip at right: On September 21, 2022, 7News Australia televised a segment looking at the debate in Queensland over whether the state should adopt daylight saving.What they said...
'It would definitely aid hospitality, [that's] been doing it tough the past two years'
Angelica Jolly, a Brisbane restaurant and bar owner, arguing for the adoption of daylight saving in Queensland
'A country kid waiting on a roadside for a school bus in the dark is surely...negatively impacted'
Professor John Cole, Pro Vice-Chancellor at The University of Southern Queensland, arguing against daylight saving
The issue at a glance
At 2.00am on Sunday, April 3, 2022, daylight savings ended across New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.
Twice every year, when daylight saving either begins or ends across all south-eastern states, debate is renewed over whether it should be retained.
On March 15, 2022, the debate was given an extra impetus by the United States Senate deciding to institute daylight saving for the whole year, starting in 2023. (The decision still must be passed by the United States House of Representatives before it can be presented to the president to sign.)
So far, the debate in Australia has not centred around extending daylight saving across the whole year. The question currently is either whether daylight saving is desirable, or, more specifically, whether Queensland should adopt it. On several occasions in the past, the same question has been raised in Western Australia.