Advancing Eastern Standard Time by 30 minutes

Eligibility - Queensland residents
Principal Petitioner:
Graeme Brittenden
10 Albert Place
SANDSTONE POINT QLD 4511
Total Signatures - 289
Sponsoring Member: The Clerk of the Parliament
Posting Date: 16/6/2016
Closing Date: 29/11/2016
Tabled Date: 21/3/2017
Responded By: Hon Yvette D'Ath MP on 20/4/2017
TO: The Honourable the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland

Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House that when clocks on the east coast are not synchronised, the Queensland economy is burdened with extra costs ($4.35 billion per annum as per CCIQ Report December 2010).

 

Eighty six per cent (86%) of the combined Queensland (QLD)/New South Wales (NSW) population, including the citizens of the two state capitals, do not live within Eastern Standard Time (E.S.T).  The QLD sector is from Yeppoon to the Gold Coast and west to Goondiwindi.


Daylight Saving Time (DST) does not correct this anomaly. A similar situation existed in 1895 when Central Standard Time (C.S.T.) originally excluded Adelaide. In 1898/9 C.S.T. was advanced by 30 minutes to rectify this oversight. Had E.S.T. been corrected at the same time, DST might not have been introduced in Australia.


DST is now superfluous and irrelevant in eastern Australia - it certainly has no applicability in Queensland. Apart from the

confusion it causes at the QLD/NSW border there are many other inconveniences.

 

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to ensure that: 1. clocks on the eastern seaboard remain permanently synchronised and, 2. there are no more than three time zones in Australia. We further request the House to seek:


• a mandate to advance E.S.T. in Queensland by 30 minutes, thereby encompassing all population centres and cities including Brisbane, and

• the contemporaneous agreement of their southern counterparts to legislate likewise and to abandon DST.