On 8 November 2011 15:55, Shaun Bouckaert <shaun.bouckaert@gmail.com> wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Shaun Bouckaert <shaun.bouckaert@gmail.com> Date: 8 November 2011 15:31 Subject: Re: [tz] Australian time zone abbreviations To: tz@iana.org

On 8 November 2011 15:20, Shaun Bouckaert <shaun.bouckaert@gmail.com> wrote:

...

Thanks for the research Edwin.

Considering that the Federal Government, ABC, SBS, Bureau of Meteorology, and several large national newspapers (with a few anomolies) all use the same notation, I would say that a fairly well established standard exists. Perhaps it is the ambiguity caused by the absence of the 'A' that lead to organisations coming up with things like ADST. Given the existing use of the Axxx acronyms, the fact that the Federal Government itself has defined the timezones as such and the fact that there are bugs in software due to the ambiguity with the American timezones, and finally, the fact that the only arguments against it have been that the states haven't defined them in legislation (was this proposed as if it somehow invalidated the federal governments opinion?), it's hard to argue against it. As for the confusion you've encountered Greg, perhaps if the Axxx labels were used, less people would be confused and not be making up acronyms like ADST.

[snip]

I meant to also add, probably a significant amount of the current usage of EST is due to the fact that that is how it is currently expressed in the tzdata, as opposed to any conscious decision or style guide.

Shaun

Whilst updating my address on my license after a recent move I found an example of the Queensland Government using the abbreviation AEST for the timezone in the TOS of the Queensland Transport website. https://www.service.transport.qld.gov.au/qt/QtTerms.jsp "Time is provided in Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) as it exists in Brisbane, Australia (GMT + 10:00). Please note that Brisbane does not have daylight saving time during summer." Considering both federal guidelines and state government usage agree, I can see no reason for this not to be changed. Shaun