Australian Capital Territory DST rule change?
A story in the July 3 ABC News (Australia) says that the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) will change its daylight-saving rules starting October, to bring it into line with Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Until now, I didn't know that the ACT had different rules from its neighbors. I guess this means we'll need to add a new Zone Australia/Canberra to deal with the discrepancy? It is pretty weird that the ACT was a small island of one UTC offset in a sea of a different UTC offsets. To be honest, I'm having a bit of a tough time believing this news report. Maybe I'm reading it incorrectly? But if it's correct, does anyone know when the ACT started diverging from NSW and Victoria? Thanks. Here's the story: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/03/2294048.htm
Paul Eggert wrote:
A story in the July 3 ABC News (Australia) says that the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) will change its daylight-saving rules starting October, to bring it into line with Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.
I think someone made a mistake and published (or republished) the story a year late. The story would make perfect sense if released in 2007. In any case, the official statement is within a document called "2007-08 Daylight Saving Arrangements in the ACT" found on this page: http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/holidays The statement appears to be in line with the current tz data: "Daylight saving in the ACT will commence as usual on the last Sunday in October (28 October 2007) but will end a week later on the first Sunday in April (6 April 2008). The ACT has agreed to amend its Daylight Saving arrangements in line with New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. The changes extend the daylight saving period so that from 2008 it will start on the first Sunday in October (rather than the last Sunday in October) and end on the first Sunday in April (rather than the last Sunday in March)." Chris
This site is useful for Australian actual dates... http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/dst_times.shtml 1981-1982 would be the only time that ACT and NSW were not aligned... Peter A McKenzie IT Strategy and Architecture Executive, Westpac Account. IBM Email petermck@au1.ibm.com Mobile/Cell +61 412 58 6665 Voice Mail +61 2 9461 3324 Fax +61 2 8853 3538 "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." [Buddha] From: Chris Wylie <cwylie@gresham-computing.com.au> To: "tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov" <tz@lecserver.nci.nih.gov> Date: 10/07/2008 08:32 AM Subject: Re: Australian Capital Territory DST rule change? Paul Eggert wrote:
A story in the July 3 ABC News (Australia) says that the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) will change its daylight-saving rules starting October, to bring it into line with Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.
I think someone made a mistake and published (or republished) the story a year late. The story would make perfect sense if released in 2007. In any case, the official statement is within a document called "2007-08 Daylight Saving Arrangements in the ACT" found on this page: http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/holidays The statement appears to be in line with the current tz data: "Daylight saving in the ACT will commence as usual on the last Sunday in October (28 October 2007) but will end a week later on the first Sunday in April (6 April 2008). The ACT has agreed to amend its Daylight Saving arrangements in line with New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. The changes extend the daylight saving period so that from 2008 it will start on the first Sunday in October (rather than the last Sunday in October) and end on the first Sunday in April (rather than the last Sunday in March)." Chris
The difference between ACT and NSW in 1981-1982 on the page HYPERLINK "http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/dst_times.shtml"http://www.bo m.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/dst_times.shtml is interesting, I wonder if it is a "typo" e.g. putting ACT on the wrong line, since Shanks, tz database, HYPERLINK "http://www.astro.com"www.astro.com and others agree that ACT followed DST until 1982-04-04. Is there any authoritative information on this, since The Bureau of Metheorology already declines their authority on this matter? Concerning the story on HYPERLINK "http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/03/2294048.htm"http://www.abc.ne t.au/news/stories/2008/07/03/2294048.htm I think you can read the article like the Devil reads the Bible, but there is no real discrepancy if you read it with an open mind: (1) The rule changes from 2007 to 2008 meant that effective DST period is now one month longer, however since the DST implementation was first a rule change in DST end for 2007-2008, and then a rule change in DST start 2008-2009, then first period had 1 week longer DST, and second period 3 weeks longer DST. But the net effect is 1 month more DST. (2) Starting this October DST rules are now in synch for ACT, NSW, TAS,VIC, SA. (3) daylight saving will now start on the first weekend of October and continue until the start of April - Jesper Nørgaard Welen No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.4.5/1533 - Release Date: 2008-07-03 19:19
Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:24:50 -0500 From: "Jesper Norgaard Welen" <jnorgard@prodigy.net.mx> Message-ID: <!~!UENERkVCMDkAAQACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABgAAAAAAAAADuUZBf7Jo0OrktsA6harmMKAAAAQAAAAGTEdfyBfhE6t67MOnH7qqAEAAAAA@prodigy.net.mx> | Is there any authoritative information on this, It is probably possible to research the ACT statutes (they may have on-line copies going back that far by now) - the relevant stuff is probably Commonwealth of Aust laws, I believe time zone info for ACT is likely to be out of scope for the local ACT govt (this is most likely the only timezone the federal govt gets to play with in Aust, and all they have ever done with it is follow NSW, NT is more likely done locally, though they never play at all). Aside from that... I'm certainly not authoritative, but I would have remembered if ACT had ever been different from Sydney - that would have been notable news, and impossible to miss. I certainly recall nothing like that ever happening (unlike wrt Tas, and South Aus). With that in mind, anyone who wanted could take a look in the any of the various major state (or ACT) libraries for newspapers from the relevant week(s) - if ACT were on a different timezone, that would have been reported (it would have been a huge mess.) I think I'd mostly ignore the BoM for timezone information - for accurate time info for Aust the most reliable source (aside from, the actual statutes, which in any case only specify the theory, rather than what is actually observed) would probably be the national measurement lab (a division (or part thereof) of CSIRO). kre
Paul Eggert <eggert <at> CS.UCLA.EDU> writes:
A story in the July 3 ABC News (Australia) says that the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) will change its daylight-saving rules starting October, to bring it into line with Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Until now, I didn't know that the ACT had different rules from its neighbors. I guess this means we'll need to add a new Zone Australia/Canberra to deal with the discrepancy?
Euhm... I think it was a matter of not being legislated yet, I don't recall *anything* in the news about them not moving at the same time as NSW. I'll ask around today though.
It is pretty weird that the ACT was a small island of one UTC offset in a sea of a different UTC offsets. To be honest, I'm having a bit of a tough time believing this news report. Maybe I'm reading it incorrectly? But if it's correct, does anyone know when the ACT started diverging from NSW and Victoria?
It happened when NSW and Victoria changed *their* DST time in 2007. http://www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/2008%2D24/ The amendments are: substitute (a) a period starting at 2 am on the first Sunday in October in a year and ending at 2 am on the first Sunday in the following April; or (At the bottom of page 8 of the PDF and page 4 of the bottom-page-numbering). Edwin -- Edwin Groothuis | Personal website: http://www.mavetju.org edwin@mavetju.org | Weblog: http://www.mavetju.org/weblog/
Edwin Groothuis < <edwin <at> mavetju.org> writes:
Paul Eggert <eggert <at> CS.UCLA.EDU> writes:
A story in the July 3 ABC News (Australia) says that the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) will change its daylight-saving rules starting October, to bring it into line with Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Until now, I didn't know that the ACT had different rules from its neighbors. I guess this means we'll need to add a new Zone Australia/Canberra to deal with the discrepancy?
Euhm... I think it was a matter of not being legislated yet, I don't recall *anything* in the news about them not moving at the same time as NSW. I'll ask around today though.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/31/2203264.htm The ACT Chamber of Commerce expects some inconvenience for businesses this morning as the fallout from daylight saving computer errors continues. A programing glitch resulted in computers and mobile phones across Australia's south eastern states changing over from daylight saving to standard time, a week too early. So they changed it in reality, but the legislation had not caught up with it. Edwin
On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 10:29:08PM +0000, Edwin Groothuis wrote:
Edwin Groothuis < <edwin <at> mavetju.org> writes:
Paul Eggert <eggert <at> CS.UCLA.EDU> writes:
A story in the July 3 ABC News (Australia) says that the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) will change its daylight-saving rules starting October, to bring it into line with Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Until now, I didn't know that the ACT had different rules from its neighbors. I guess this means we'll need to add a new Zone Australia/Canberra to deal with the discrepancy?
Euhm... I think it was a matter of not being legislated yet, I don't recall *anything* in the news about them not moving at the same time as NSW.
So they changed it in reality, but the legislation had not caught up with it.
The short version is that there is a legislative change in ACT, but it just confirms that the information in the TZ database is right. The way the ACT legislation works is that they have a default rule for when the summer time period will be, plus an option for the minister to declare a specific summer time period to override the default. In October 2007, there was a minister's declaration for 2007/2008 to make effective the new April end date for summer time (so ACT matched NSW, Vic, SA and Tas). In July 2008, ACT changed the default rule in legislation, to match the decision made last year harmonising (and extending) summer time. So ACT has been synchronised with NSW for the last few years, and should remain so in future. You can find the consolidated ACT legislation at: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/act/consol_act/stasta1972279/ STANDARD TIME AND SUMMER TIME ACT 1972 Although when I looked this morning AustLII had the old version. The 2008 amendment is: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/act/bill/stastab2008369/ http://www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/2008-24/default.asp It was passed and "notified" (made official/effective) in July 2008. There is an explanatory statement at: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/act/bill_es/stastab2008369/stastab2008369... This gives an overview of the history of what happened with ACT/NSW summer time in the last year or so. Have a look if you want more details. David Keegel.
participants (8)
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Chris Wylie -
David Keegel -
Edwin Groothuis -
Edwin Groothuis <
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Jesper Norgaard Welen -
Paul Eggert -
Peter A McKenzie -
Robert Elz