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Tuesday, 02 December 2008

Daylight saving still splits the Sunshine State

3/10/2008 12:43:00 PM.  | AAP
As regular as south-east Queensland's summer storm season, the region is once more mired in the annual daylight saving debate.

Clocks will be wound forward one hour at 2am (AEST) Sunday morning in New South Wales, Victoria, ACT, Tasmania and South Australia, and in Western Australia at the end of the month.

But not in Queensland, where the issue is again causing angst for politicians.

While traders on the Gold Coast complain about million dollar losses without daylight saving, mums 1,600 kilometres away in Mt Isa worry about their children coming home from school in the heat of the day if it is ever introduced.

It's not just a matter of winding clocks forward. The political ramifications are huge.

Members of the state's newly-merged Liberal National Party (LNP) have been issued with prompt cards in an attempt to pre-empt damaging splits between those from the south-east corner, where daylight saving is favoured, and those in rural and regional areas where it is anathema.

Meanwhile, daylight saving supporters are ready to launch a new single issue political party aimed at having clocks in the south-east wound forward.

Proponents of the Daylight Saving for South East Queensland Party say it has the necessary 500 members to register with the Electoral Commission of Queensland in the coming week.

It will target the 67 seats in the 89-seat parliament that are in the state's south-east.

Premier Anna Bligh ruled out a switch to daylight saving shortly after becoming premier in September last year.

While Ms Bligh personally favours the move, she recognised there was strong opposition outside the south east.

But it didn't stop her again fielding questions on the issue today.

"The shape of our state is not going to change," Ms Bligh told ABC Radio.

"It's a combination of two things - what's actually practical out there in regional Queensland, and whether or not the community would support it.

"It doesn't take very long out of south-east Queensland for support to drop off."

A referendum in 1992 had 45.5 per cent voting for, and 54.5 per cent opposed, but that does not tell the whole story of a state deeply divided.

In the south-east Queensland seat of Currumbin on the Gold Coast, the "yes" case gained 12,350 votes, to 5,023 against.

However, in the north Queensland seat of Burdekin just 3,312 voted for the proposal and 16,550 were opposed.

COMMENTS

Friday, 03 October 2008

Growing up in the Southern states and living in Queensland now for a few years, it is hard to see the points of the people who oppose daylight savings. Wouldn't SE Queensland tourism focussed economy benifit in relation to greater spending with an extra our of sun light?

Posted by: D McK, Gold Coast

 
 

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