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Opinion

8 October, 2021

Debate over 60 minutes divides the nation

WELCOME to Queensland, one hour behind the rest of Australia, 20 years behind the world. It’s a glib statement we hear each October as the majority of the nation moves their clocks forward one hour.

By Peter McCullagh

Debate over 60 minutes divides the nation - feature photo

We’ve heard all the silly arguments, fading curtains, cows off their milk and the latest, the extra hour of daylight is adding to global warming.

If we forever obsess upon the ridiculous, we will never move forward and set in place a summer-time format that best suits the social and economic communities in Queensland.

For many businesses, transacting with interstate counterparts can become a tad difficult during summer. We can call or contact interstate offices later in our day, only to find we are calling out of hours. Frustrating, yes, is it an impediment to our business, debatable, in some cases yes, in others it’s a mere inconvenience.

Queensland is a big state. Sunrise in Brisbane is currently around 5:20am Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST), whilst in Cairns sunrise is a little over 30 minutes later, 5:54am (AEST).

It could be argued that the north already has natural daylight saving.

There appears to be a greater appetite for a change to Queensland summertime format because of fresh blood and potentially preconditioned devotees of daylight saving relocating from the southern states to our beautiful patch of paradise.

The tens of thousands of southerners all want to bring their curtain-fading, global-warming and cow upsetting ideas with them and change the very fabric of what makes Queensland great, I say this in jest.

I believe the best way forward is to put it to the business community. They are the ones with the most at stake. The business community should be the ones to at least have a governing say on the summer time zone for Queensland.

If the decision went to a popular vote or referendum, it would come down to a lifestyle choice, rather than an economic and business choice. Without sounding too extreme and anti-worker, we should be guided by the employers and what will best facilitate economic prosperity and business growth because of this decision.

Either way, we need to put an end to this debate and focus upon the bigger picture, getting the state back on its economic feet, moving forward and building a brighter future for this and future generations.

 

Peter McCullagh

Editor

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