[[ sorry, I was unable to keep References: and In-Reply-To: ids, ]] [[ this is a continuation of http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.time.tz/3244/focus=3251 ]] Paul Eggert <eggert@CS.UCLA.EDU> writes:
The government website of Australia states the time zone names for Australia are Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST), ...
I'm afraid it's not that simple.
Actually, it could be.
Different websites operated by the government of Australia use different names and abbreviations. The Bureau of Meteorology often uses EST/CST/WST and EDT/CDT; see, for example, <http://www.bom.gov.au/satellite/about_satpix.shtml>. And the Australian Transport Safety Bureau often uses EST/CST/WST and ESuT/CSuT; see, for example, <http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/690841/ar-2009-016(2).pdf>.
I had never heard of the atsb prior to your email. At the time of writing the atsb link does not exist.
The tz database's philosophy has generally tried to record what people typically do with their clocks and their abbreviations. If one government agency says that it's AEST/AEDT, that's a good piece of evidence; but if other agencies disagree, that's evidence that there's not a solid consensus within the government what the abbreviations are or should be.
I suspect if you approached most American government agencies and asked what is the official paper size, they would respond with 'letter'. Despite the fact that it is actually A4 -- the US being a metric country. My point is that there will always being different parts of the goverment in many countries unaware of what is actually official (technically Australia uses 24-hour time, most people would be unaware of this).
The most amusing thing about <http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/our- country/time>, the web page that Richard Stanway quoted, was this little message at its bottom:
"All times shown are Sydney, Australia Time"
In other words, the Australian government doesn't follow its own advice on time zone names and abbreviations, even on the government page that talks about time zone names! They just say the equivalent of "TZ=Australia/Sydney"!
You may not have hovered over the link, http://australia.gov.au/about- australia/our-country/time, however. Yes, that may be what the text says, if you hover over it, it says: "Australian Eastern Standard Time Sydney (AEST)". Which I think should be plenty of evidence that it is time, pun intended, to switch to AEST/ACST/AWST and AEDT/ACDT as appropriate. Regards, Anand