Very difficult to do in this context in this day and age, just look at the US with gun control, entrenched thinking about needing to be able to take over government (paranoia).
A lot of it has to do with location and traditions.
Spain, like Greece and Portugal and other countries around the Mediterranean are very hot during the day, which is why they have the siesta in the middle of the day. It’s better to have a sleep in the middle of the day and then stay out lkate at night. You don’t have that happening in Central or Northern Europe because it never got that hot, even in the middle of Summer.
The stark difference I noticed when travelling through Europe one year was how quiet and reserved the people in the Netherlands and the Czech Republic were. The moment I arrived at the airport in Italy there was suddenly so much noise, with hustle and bustle everywhere. 
A really stark difference.
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It’s hard for most businesses to significantly change their hours. Others expect them to be open and operating during certain hours.
It would require a collective decision that during summer standard business hours are 9-5 and during with that becomes 8-4. Which is that exact same thing as DST.
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Some parts of Australia would do well with that model, particularly temperate SA and WA which has a classic Mediterranean climate. Even in Bungendore, the warm season days follow this sort of rhythm as coastal moderation doesn’t usually arrive until the late afternoon/evening. Cool morning, a warm-hot afternoon and pleasant evening is the typical sequence which lends itself to the ‘siesta’. In Sydney and Brisbane, the mornings can be the worst part of the day as there’s no seabreeze to cut through the high humidity…and afternoons can be the most pleasant due to strength of said seabreeze.
Getting back to DST, I broadly agree with @tamago_otoko . The onset is about right, but I’d be happy with an early to mid March conclusion. Even in Canberra which is a bit further east than Melbourne, sunrises in March are too late. I pity those in Portland VIC or Mildura who would get an even later sunrise than Melbourne. I have been in Portland in March and remember getting up too late, similar to Queenstown NZ in the middle of winter (further south and also far west in its timezone).
Exactly the same as me!!
By the time I’m home from work, I can usually go out for a walk around 6pm.
It’s been too dark over the last 6 months, so I’ve been really looking forward to the change over so that I can get back into my walks too.
Agree. I think daylight saving could easily start two weeks earlier, around mid-September.
I find this argument interesting when I hear it as a reason against DST. My thinking is that given that the majority of clocks switch automatically and anything else takes about 5 minutes twice per year to change, I don’t think it’s really that much of an issue at all.
The commentary here really shows that daylight saving is the best model. In my opinion.
Permanent daylight saving would not be popular due to the 8:30am sunrises in Winter.
The current model is really the best of both worlds. Yes, there are two mornings per year that require the change of a couple of clocks, but other than that, it’s really the best solution to enjoy longer days in Summer without the late sunrises of Winter.
I’ve also been surprised that there hasn’t been much fuss.
But I have noticed quite a few comments on social media sites of different people saying they hadn’t even realised that the change had happened.
I guess with so many clocks switching automatically now it’s easy for people to have not noticed.
I was on a flight to Sydney yesterday afternoon (Monday), and there were two people in the row behind talking. One mentioned something about the sun being up for longer on Sunday night and the other said they thought that daylight saving had started but weren’t sure. The other responded that they didn’t even realise the change had occurred, and then said they were annoyed they didn’t realise as they could have driven to their hometown after the flight, but didn’t realise it would be daylight so had booked a room in Sydney for the night.
As a former Townsville resident, it annoys me that North QLD once again has a mayor peddling incorrect information to try to push the “NO to DST” point.
Sunset in Brisbane at the height of summer is 6:47pm, in Townsville it’s at 6:56pm.
That’s 9 minutes Jenny, not 50 like you try to claim!
It’s better than a previous mayor who I remember seeing on 7 News Townsville one night when DST was being debated who said “we don’t want daylight saving up here because we don’t want the sun shining at 10pm”
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It isn’t what time the sun sets that annoys me about daylight saving but the temperature remaining high well into the night on really hot summer days. Those late southerly changes roaring up the NSW coast after a sweltering day are always much anticipated and make for a much more comfortable sleep after they come through.
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That is the only downside of DST; you’re effectively going to bed an hour earlier in terms of solar time, so it is naturally warmer. The flip side is that mornings are cooler for longer.
The evening easterly change usually busts the heat around sunset here, and it’s a sharp cooldown. But on the hottest days you’re waiting for the angry orb to set before any cooling. In midsummer the house will still be toasty around 2200 DST on those days.
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It’s the one argument against that I will stomach here - it will mean the heat stays longer later. For instance, in summer I can’t walk the dog until really after 5pm as it’s too hot for him (both air and ground temps), which would be 6pm in DST. But then, I’d happily just substitute walking him after dinner at say 7:30pm AEDT than before dinner at 5:00pm AEST as I currently do.
And as you say, the issue with standard time here is the heat in the mornings. Breaking a sweat just by walking to the bus/train in the morning while the clock still says 7:something is just ridiculous. Not to mention trying to find time to do any outdoor activity/chore before the heat of the day kicks in - you can’t mow your lawns at 6am. So I’ll take a longer, warmer evening over what we have now.
Sorry, I promised myself I wouldn’t get dragged into the DST argument again this year, but here I am…
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The same old arguments come out every year. Everyone well and truly has their position now and that’s not likely to change.
For example: I grew up in WA. Always hated daylight saving and always will. It no longer serves its original purpose and never really did. What annoys me is the people who supposedly love it because they can go for a walk or go to the beach spend most summer evenings sitting on their ass inside with the air conditioner on because it’s too hot outside. And rightfully so.
Nothing anyone says will change my mind on that and there’s nothing I can say that would change the view for anyone who supports it. Everyone’s minds are made up.
Any benefits of daylight saving are very location dependent. In some parts of the world it is a huge pain in the ass with little benefit and it has been well established that it’s not great on our bodies either. Almost no one goes to bed earlier to make up for the hour lost and that’s why accidents are higher in the first few days after it starts.
Sure we now have the technology to mostly automate the change but that doesn’t mean we still need to do it. To me the best “compromise” on this is to make a decision one way or the other regardless of location. Stay on standard time year round or make daylight saying time permanent and stay on that. Just pick one and be done with it.
The whole argument about dark mornings is complete bullshit. Many parts of the world have darkness well in to the morning and kids still get to school and people still get to work. Everyone will be fine regardless of whether it’s dark or light. If anything I would have thought the daylight saving supporters would love more light on winter afternoons. After all that’s why they love it in summer, but that does come at the expense of longer dark mornings in winter. And to that I say who cares.
Personally I’d rather drive to work in winter without the sun blinding me. Then again the bright LED lights in cars of today aren’t any better on the eyes and I won’t say anything about the ignorant pricks who drive with their high beams on. But I digress.
Time is what we make of it. Most of China operates on a single timezone. Alaska, Canada, Russia and northern Europe all have regions where it’s pitch black for most of the day in the winter. They’re all fine.
Just pick one. Standard time or daylight saving time. Make either one permanent and we can be done with this whole stupid concept once and for all.
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I agree. Move the whole country to UTC+10:30.
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Just a slight correction, all of China is under the same timezone.
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Tell that to my former neighbour in Oatley 
Which is nonsensical because it crosses five time zones. The locals end up unofficially using the real local time, or they adjust their days around the national timezone which creates a whole other mess.
Officially yes. Unofficially Xinjiang in the west uses their own so I used “most”, but you are correct in that officially the whole country is on a single timezone.
China took things too far with one timezone for such a huge country but it proves the point. Time is what we make of it. This whole concept of the traditional workday being 9 to 5 and everyone having to be awake during the daylight hours isn’t a requirement. It’s a choice that society made but not everyone does it.
China is a good example of where the time on the clock vs where the sun is doesn’t matter. As for the rest of the world plenty of people work night shift and sleep during the day. Many people have varying shifts that cross over between day and night. They all handle it just fine.
Going to daylight saving time permanently and “dealing” with dark mornings isn’t the big problem that some make it out to be. I’m not saying that would be my preference. I don’t care whether we’re all on standard time or daylight saving time. Just pick one and make it permanent.
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Do they, though? I think there have been studies around the health impacts of continuous night shifts or day/night shifts?
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Plenty do it, it is a paying job after all, but of course it is not the best thing for your health, that is common sense, disrupting the natural sleep rhythm. I myself was one of them for a few years.
It is what it is, sometimes you just have to make the best of a not great situation. But agreed, different people have different effects from it whether it is continuous or occasional.
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Speaking purely from my own experience: up until earlier this year I worked nights and did for 13 years. I’m all good as far as I know 
That was my routine for so long. I knew be up at this time, work at this time and go to bed at this time. Where the sun was located had no bearing on my schedule, as it doesn’t for many others as well.
But I meant that it’s pretty common for people to work nights all around the world and we need that now more than ever. It’s a 24/7 world these days. That’s not to say the health impacts aren’t a concern but for the time being there isn’t much we can do about that.
The health impacts of daylight saving are avoidable. People will say the positives outweigh the negatives and perhaps they do, which is why going to daylight saving time permanently would be fine with me. Or stay on standard time if that makes everyone happy.
It would seem that the majority of people overall like daylight saving so would they be prepared to accept some dark mornings in winter and get a little extra light in the afternoons as a result in order to keep the extended evening light in summer? I can’t see how that’s not a winner personally.
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When it comes to kids walking/riding to school in the dark with sunrise closer to 9am at the peak of winter here it’s quite a dangerous situation. Let alone the cold, dark mornings are already hard enough for many people - there’s a lot of people who suffer SAD in Tasmania throughout the winter months so having an additional hour of that won’t help that and when it translates to only about an extra 20-30 mins of light at the end of the day after work and if you’re lucky to get home in time then it’s not such a winning idea at all. Everywhere is different and that’s from a Tasmanian perspective - we love it, we love it the length it is and going to a +10 or +11 permanently will have pros and cons.
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Yes, and I respect that yours is too, but…
I completely disagree with this point. We go to bed around 10:30pm.
Last week and the week before that was 10:30pm AEST.
This week that has been 10:30pm AEDT.
From what I know from friends, they’re still following their usual schedules. Not staying up an hour later arbirtarily.
Sure, this may be correct for some, of course.
But I notice a marked increase in people out at restaurants, out for walks, etc. when daylight saving starts, and a marked decrease when it ends.
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