You are correct - there are no universal truths here.
Yet it’s true for my household &, I expect, every household near me, because we live in the sub-tropical zone. No other part of Australia is forced to endure DST, who is this far north (& this hot & humid in Summer!). It goes against my body clock to want to cook or eat dinner in bright sunshine & heat.
I think a sensible demarcation line would be south of Woodburn/Evans Head. There’s a major mountain range which divides the Richmond & Clarence River valleys. If the Clarence River people wanted out, they could propose a line south of Yamba/Grafton, where there’s another geographical division between there & the Corindi Beach/Woolgoolga/Coffs Harbour region.
You ask if that’s reasonable, but my comment is that it’s unreasonable to expect people living in the sub-tropics to endure DST, when no-one else in Australia this far north has to put up with it, & then have our economy & communities disrupted because of health & business we have to do in SE Qld.
I get the impression there are:
- a couple of people in this thread enthusiastically FOR DST,
- a couple on the fence, and
- by far the majority against - with some (off topic to some degree but interesting an valid) tangential thoughts on zones/etc.
A quick search online seems to find plenty of opinions by various people who know a lot, or think they do, saying all manner of things …
I’m almost prepared to say Daylight Saving is a true mystery of the modern world, but then, so many things are 
We appear to be mislead in so many things in life?
From an early age misdirection including errors or omissions in our scholarly knowledge is frequent. The system fine tunes our training until we turn 18, when the system trusts we will vote accordingly?
Mystery solved? 
That’s a great point, tpeter267.
It isn’t just a “Yes, it’s convenient” or “No, its not convenient” question, it’s that those who are inconvenienced also actually suffer repercussions that go way beyond “inconvenience”.
Earlier, I said the NE corner of NSW is the only part of Australia this far north that has to endure DST, which was slightly incorrect. The northern part of SA is slightly more northerly but has a very sparse population, unlike here. It’s also worth noting that we are further north than most of QLD’s southern border.
Dear fellow owl I am with you all the way - for all of the year we should have the clocks set to time that is either daylight neutral or daylight saving. Instead of the daylight losing clock time that is set according to the meridian west of the bulk of the population of Queensland and New South Wales.
This is why the Australian Eastern standard Time (AEST) needs to be set to an appropriate eastern meridian all year round.
The 157.5 degree east meridian would be perfect; it is UTC+10:30
Then we would not need to change the clock time twice a year.
Are you sure there is such a thing?
Perhaps if we could straighten the axis of the earth all would be fine?
What benefit might that provide? Only one perpetual evenly tempered season all year round. No seasonal change of wardrobe. It might positively destroy the fashion industry too!
My vote remains for a single time zone based on 135 degrees east being perfect. It ensures all of Australia benefits equally from a single national synchronicity, while on average we will all be united in our dislike of the new time plan!
Anything less risks creating happiness for some at the expense of misery for the rest.
Straightening the axis of the Earth? Please, don’t let the nutters know about this fanciful notion. Besides, I love the gradual changing of the seasons, which allows us to grow different types of foods at different times of the year (plus the added bonus of natural crop rotation). Having no seasons would encourage more mono-cultured food production and might even stuff up food production as we know it.
Most people in Australia live in cities and so are often disconnected from the earth and her rhythms. City people often don’t consider the challenges of food production, which is rarely truly “local”.
I think this is why DST was introduced - to enable more satisfaction of city dwellers’ leisure time.
That said, some city dwellers are really switched on, I’m glad to observe.
It’s something I was expecting to have already been picked up by the “Nation for One” party. 
I won’t tell her if you don’t! 
Ha ha ha. Then there are the “Flat Earthers” – if you can believe that you can believe anything. Straightening the Earth’s axis- easy!
Clock set to solar time at 135 degrees east is equivalent to UTC+9:00
would mean that at Coolangatta the clock time for sunrise & sunset would be:
Summer solstice 5:46am, 7:42pm
Autumn equinox 6:50am, 6:56pm
Winter solstice 7:37am, 5:48pm
Spring equinox 6:37am, 6:41pm
at Sydney the clock time for sunrise & sunset would be:
Summer solstice 5:41am, 7:05pm
Autumn equinox 6:59am, 6:06pm
Winter solstice 8:00am, 5:54pm
Spring equinox 6:46am, 6:51pm
=> significant “daylight losing” people who start work in office at 8am in winter would not see the sun all morning
Setting clocks all over Australia to UTC+0:00 ACST, Yakutsk Time (YAKT), Japan Standard Time (JST), and Eastern Indonesian Time (WIT) is not appealing!
It might be if you live in The Alice!
Applying a unifying logic rather than appealing to emotion ensures there will never be a business or organisational disadvantage. No matter where you live in Australia!
However it is likely a dramatically unpopular solution for nearly the whole of the nation, except perhaps R Murdoch (who is no longer one of us). It is the price of perfect alignment of the hours of work nationally. I’d park the likelihood of success on this along side a uniform national wage/salary. Equal pay for all. Imagine if Rupert had stayed Australian, he might need to work for the same pay rate as my neighbour who cleans the public bar floors every night?
The more important discussion might be the demonstration that daylight hours differ significantly depending on where you live. East to West on the continent as well as north to south the variations equate to hours, and not just a few minutes here and there. And midsummer in Launceston is not the same as mid summer in Darwin. I won’t mention winter. People from Hobart tend not to either?
Would it be simpler therefore to accept that having different time zones is not that great a difficulty? And if it is not too difficult accepting time zones east to west, then differences in time zones north to south are equally acceptable?
Even if some differences in part are due to daylight robbery/saving.
P.S.
Is the opposite of daylight saving daylight borrowing? You don’t actually loose daylight. Perhaps it should be called what it really is - daylight shifting?
I make sunrise and sunset in Coolangatta and Sydney if on ACST, 2 hours earlier than for all the times in the table! If that makes any difference to the discussion.
IE (sunrise to sunset) 22 June 19 winter solstice
Coolangatta Qld, AEST 6:37am - 4:58pm or ACST 5:37am - 3:58pm
Or not forgetting
Melbourne Vic, AEST 7:35am - 5:08pm or ACST 6:35am - 4:08pm
No excuse for sleeping in and missing work mid winter for anyone on the east coast? And you were probably driving home in the dark anyway!
Just square it - problem solved.
I seem to recall that there were problems with some of this work - I think my statistics podcast covered the issue. Externalities such as seasonal health problems and hospital admissions were not being adequately accounted for.
I like my evenings. I like to go to night markets - without needing sunglasses. Our local council has movies in the park in summer - great fun, except that you can’t begin the movie before 9:30, when most kids are already asleep. I like BBQs when you can see the fairy lights in your garden. I’ll be happy to see daylight savings go.
It’s that time of year again:
One surefire way.
Live in Qld, NT or WA.
If I lived in Melbourne, perhaps Perth is the best option. Get off the plane at Perth Airport in just 1hr and 15mins, after DS kicks in.
Apologies for using the Real Estate Developer inspired marketing to distort the proximity of the product to your destination. Typically the imagined commute time home from the inner city workplace.
P.S.
I don’t mind Melbourne either, great food in and not too far out of town, whether events excepted.
The job you’d want is the one at the airport to get best advantage.
On the eve of daylight savings time commencing, I had a thought (yes, it took me many years to get here): how do shift workers and managers coordinate the changing of clocks? I have a few thoughts on how it might be managed logically, but would appreciate feedback from anyone who works in a 24/7/365 environment (hospital/medical, police, fire, electricity supply, 24 hour grocery stores… the list is a long one).
- Does an eight hour shift become a nine hour shift, to be set off against a seven hour shift at the other end of daylight savings?
- Do the shift times… shift one hour, so that during daylight savings you start at midnight but when it ends you start at 11pm? (This seems to be a sensible solution to me, but I am sure other correspondents will find problems with it.)
- Is there a solution negotiated depending upon the workplace/union/trust, so some people work an hour longer and are paid for the extra hour or some such?
I would be very interested to hear from anyone whose work times are affected by daylight savings time and can correct my misunderstandings.
As always there is no consensus on the value of DST. Personally I have no strong feelings one way or the other. Although something is putting the chooks off the lay and as has been mentioned in other threads the Community web site is very slow to load these days. And the mail is always late round here, although John my neighbour says most of such problems are because we live on a river running southwards, apparently he always wanted to live on a north-flowing river. He hates DST too - must be something to do with it.
It sure does cause a lot of trouble. Most of the problems come about 'cause they always changing it, can’t seem to make up their minds to have it or not, seems like it changes every year. Apparently they are going to change it again tonight. I don’t care as I will be asleep when it happens and you should be too.
Seeing as how it is such a worry, instead of forcing things on people, where you are certain to make somebody unhappy, why not make it optional? If I knew how I would start one of those multichoice votes. If making it optional is popular maybe Choice could lobby for it. That would be more democratic.
