South Australia has both extended daylight saving time and "normal" time is ahead of the sun by half an hour. Since the state is quite large residents in the west of the state start the day in darkness in winter. The decision for South Australia to adopt daylight saving time permanently was made by referendum. At the time, although I did not care about daylight saving personally, because it was supposed to save energy, I voted for the motion.

The research now shows that energy saving is no longer the case. In hindsight I wonder whether the installation of all the airconditioners has been a response to daylight saving? Many people travel home from work at local sun time of 3.30, often the hottest part of the day. Having got home all heated up the last thing they want is to be outdoors. No they turn the aircon on to cool down, and do not go out later to enjoy the balmy evening.

Rather than have daylight saving I think we should introduce the notion of siesta, stop working between noon and 5pm.

The following letter was published on 9 March 2008.

The Editor
"The Sunday Mail"

Dear Editor,

As we come to the end of daylight saving it is a good time to ask
ourselves the question, "Does it really work? Does daylight saving
really save energy?"
A three year study in Indiana involving 7 million households has shown
that daylight saving wastes energy rather than saving it. Although
electricity used for lighting is less, much more electricity is used
running airconditioning, as people are arriving at home before
temperatures have begun to drop significantly, and in extended periods
heating on cold mornings.
University of California-Santa Barbara economics professor Matthew
Kotchen said, "I've never had a paper with such a clear and unambiguous
finding as this."
This is similar to findings in a 2007 study by economists Hendrik Wolff
and Ryan Kellogg who examined the impact of extending daylight saving
during the Sydney Olympics and found that energy use increases.
I suggest that South Australia abandons daylight saving, since it does
not seem to save energy, and also revert to the time appropriate for our
zone instead of continuing with  Central Standard Time.
What are the reasons for CST? With the introduction of flexible working
hours in the seventies, the move from the telegraph, nineteenth century
technology, to the internet  time differences around the world are blurred.
Surely our biological needs to keep in step with the sun can now take
precedence over the needs of business. With our current time meridien in
New Souoth Wales it means that in winter children on Eyre Peninsula are
going to school in the dark in winter.
Abandoning Central Standard time reduces the time difference with WA
down to an hour, puts us in the same time zone as Japan and could be
used as a marketing ploy for our tourism industry "same time, opposite
season."

Denise Tzumli