Weatherill to review SA’s timezone
South Australia could abandon its Central Standard timezone, with the Weatherill Government embarking on a major consultation process on whether to adopt Western or Eastern Standard Time.
Premier Jay Weatherill this morning revealed his Investment and Trade Minister – Liberal ring-in Martin Hamilton-Smith – would lead the process, to determine “whether South Australia’s time-zone presents a barrier to social and economic activities”.
“South Australia’s half-hour time difference to the eastern states and 90 minute difference to Western Australia can cause confusion across the spectrum of our daily lives – from sporting fixtures to public service administration and business transactions,” Weatherill said.
“The business community has raised this issue with me on a number of occasions and I believe the time is right to put the broader question to the community about the day-to-day inconvenience of a half-hour time zone.”
He announced the review just minutes before a scheduled debate with Opposition Leader Steven Marshall in front of a high-powered corporate audience at Business SA’s “Back To Business” lunch at the Adelaide Convention Centre.
Business SA CEO Nigel McBride said he was “in heated support” of a change.
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“No pun intended – it’s time,” he said.
“We need to be in every sense perceived and aligned with the Eastern economic zone and an important aspect of that is to be in the same time zone. There’s absolutely no credible reason for being on a half-hour time difference.”
However, he dismissed any suggestion of moving an hour away from the east coast to Western Standard Time.
“We think that’s irrelevant,” he said.
Property Council executive director Daniel Gannon was less enthusiastic.
“Sure, let’s have a public discussion about time zones – but we cannot afford to ignore other areas of serious economic reform, like tax, population growth, planning and shop trading hours,” Gannon said.
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“There might also be merit in aligning South Australia with Asia instead of the eastern seaboard – should we start talking to the world instead of talking to ourselves?”
South Australia’s time zone, unchanged since 1899, is 9.5 hours ahead of Co-ordinated Universal Time (UTC), one of only seven jurisdictions with a half-hour reference point against the world’s most commonly-used time standard. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory are all 10 hours ahead of UTC, while Western Australia is eight hours ahead.
But Weatherill is not yet advocating for change, saying only that if a move proves to have “positive benefits for business, create jobs, improve our public administration and our scheduling of major events and sporting fixtures then we must seriously consider it”.
“I have asked Minister Hamilton-Smith to lead a consultation process with the business community, major sporting bodies, people in the regions and the broader community – this process will begin immediately,” Weatherill said.
Hamilton-Smith himself sounded a cautionary note: “The people of the State’s west coast would have significant concerns about a move towards Eastern Standard Time – so we must be fully aware of the impact this would have on this important region.”
Nonetheless, “I am keen to explore the opportunity this change presents for making SA more connected to Australia and the international community”.
He said the Northern Territory Government and Broken Hill “community” would be consulted “as any changes to South Australia’s time zone may best be done in conjunction with those jurisdictions” – implying that ACST could be abandoned altogether.
It’s far from the first time the issue has been placed on the political agenda. Most recently, Family First MLC Robert Brokenshire advocated SA’s time zone should be one hour behind the eastern states, which he called a “reasonable compromise” that would help farmers.
Brokenshire told InDaily he welcomed the renewed debate but was “disappointed it’s been brought in to deflect from major issues of concern that the Government has announced this week”.
He says the review should consider all options but still favours a half-hour backwards shift to closer align with our “growing trading partners in Asia”.
In 2004, then-crossbencher Kris Hanna introduced a failed private member’s bill to shift SA to Eastern Standard Time.
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