Our Time Zone

The Nationals will rectify South Australia's time zone.

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South Australia should be exactly one hour behind the eastern states and one hour ahead of WA. This is because SA fits entirely within the ideal meridians of UTC + 9.

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However, the Colony of South Australia decided to shift it’s time zone by half an hour in 1899. The reasoning for the change was practical at the time, but has no relevance today. The colony wanted to reduce disruptions to inter-colonial business, reduce wait times for accessing telegraph cables (because they received them early in the morning but opened later), and ensure that footy games and work hours didn’t occur after dark.

 

Modern communications and electric lighting have addressed all of these concerns. The half hour difference is a hangover from our colonial era, and keeping it only creates confusion for interstate communication.

 

It also exacerbates a separate issue for SA residents in the west of the state. During daylight savings, time springs forward an hour. When you include the additional 30min from our state’s peculiar time zone, it means an individual living in Yalata is actually using a time zone that is best suited for someone living 3,000km away, in the middle of the Tasman Sea. Practically, this means children will go to school in the dark and will go to bed when it’s still bright outside. It also exacerbates farmers’ longstanding issue with daylight savings, as their work hours are usually determined by the prevalence of sunlight.

 

In short, moving the time zone back to its rightful place mitigates the worst effects of daylight savings whilst removing confusion about our time zone for interstate correspondence.

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