Queensland business calls for sun to be regulated

The lack of daylight saving in Queensland is something the south tends to find amusing, with lots of jokes about the extra sunshine fading the curtains and so forth.  The Goss Labor government introduced it way back, but was persuaded to hold a referendum on the issue in which it was soundly defeated.

Now the push is on, mainly from business and tourism to reintroduce it.

Daylight saving is a product of the rather quaint belief in the southern states that their governments have the power to regulate the time the sun rises and sets.  Witness the advertisement from Travel Victoria: 

"If you're planning to get the first rays of the morning sun on Queensland's Gold Coast, you'll need to ensure you're up at the unearthly hour of 4.47am on December 21,'' mocks Travel Victoria's website. "However, you can almost forget that evening BBQ in the sun, with darkness falling from 6.42pm.”

This assumes that, were the government up here to be as progressive as the Victorian one, the sun would rise an hour later as ordered at a much more convenient time for their people to shit the bed and get up and have breakfast.  It also ignores the fact that with the extra heat of our summers, most Queenslanders have the sense to wait till the sun goes down to have their barbeques under lights, (yes, we have electricity up here) in the cool of the evening.

The real problem for Qld business is not that the sun rises and sets too late, it is regulation of trading hours; something that they in the main have demanded.  You can’t after all allow that prick in competition with you start at an hour more conducive to trading with southern companies, nor have him put on a smaller skeleton staff to take orders after the regulated trading hours, in case he gets the drop on you.  Many businesses tend to regard a level playing field as one where all trade when, how, and where the government allows them.

Were trading hours to be deregulated, companies could chose their own hours according to need, pressure in infrastructure would be relieved with peak hours being extended, and the public could use their free will to make choices.

One thing that hasn’t changed over the years, Is the arrogance of those living in the more populous South East.  In a poll accompanying the report, more than 35% of those living there believe the whole state should be subjected to daylight saving even though it means an 8:30PM sunset for the West.  During the previous poll in 1992, there was an offer made to allow the SE corner to have daylight saving but for the rest to stay on Eastern Standard Time.  Businesses in Brisbane and the Gold Coast insisted that such a scheme would cause chaos and be unworkable.

After the referendum defeated DS time, they suddenly had a change of heart on that, but too late.  The reason they objected to the rest of Qld having EST was the possibility that businesses outside the SE corner might gain an advantage over them by being in the same time zone, whereas the South would have been an hour different.

The SE corner wants its cake and eat it too, but the rest of us should be obligated to provide it courtesy of big government.