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DAYLIGHT SAVING BILL 2007 (No. 70)

Second Reading

[11.50 a.m.]

Mr LENNON (Franklin - Premier - 2R) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I move -

That the bill be now read the second time.

The purpose of this bill is to synchronise daylight saving in Tasmania with New South Wales, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia; to provide for the period of daylight saving to be prescribed by regulation; and to repeal and replace the Daylight Saving Act 1968 and associated legislation.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the bill will allow Tasmania to implement an historic agreement reached on 27 June 2007 whereby State and Territory First Ministers formally resolved to synchronise daylight saving across Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia. Under the agreement, daylight saving will commence on the first Sunday in October and conclude on the first Sunday in April the following year. The new arrangements will take effect from April 2008.

The agreement means that Tasmania will have one additional week of daylight saving. Currently daylight saving in Tasmania commences on the first Sunday in October and concludes on the last Sunday in March the following year. Under the agreement, the other States and Territory will bring their commencement date for daylight saving into line with Tasmania by moving it forward by three weeks to the first Sunday in October and move their conclusion date back one week to the first Sunday in April. The changes mean that time will be aligned across the participating States and Territory, although South Australia will remain half an hour behind throughout the year due to the observance of Australian Central Standard Time.

Mr Deputy Speaker, alignment of daylight saving across the participating States and Territory will reduce confusion and bring real benefits for Tasmania's tourism industry and the broader business community. Airline scheduling will be simplified and thousands of Tasmanian businesses that deal with interstate suppliers and clients will benefit from the increased productivity and efficiency. Simply being able to make contact with people on the other side of Bass Strait at the start and end of the working day will eliminate the 'dead patch' that has been a source of frustration for many years. International business transactions with Tasmania will also be streamlined because many people overseas assume we are on the same time zone as Sydney and Melbourne.

Tasmania was the first jurisdiction in Australia to introduce daylight saving, and this agreement represents significant acknowledgement by the other States and Territory that Tasmania continues to lead the way on daylight saving.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the bill will be supported by regulations that will prescribe the period commencing at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in October in each year and ending at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in April in the following year as the period of daylight saving. It is not envisaged that this period of daylight saving will routinely change; however, prescribing the period of daylight saving by regulation provides greater flexibility and administrative efficiency in making adjustments to daylight saving to respond to exceptional one-off circumstances, such as occurred with the 2006 Commonwealth Games and 2000 Olympic Games.

In summary, this bill will modernise and simplify the legislation in Tasmania governing daylight saving. I commend the bill to the House.

[11.54 a.m.]

Mr WILL HODGMAN (Franklin - Leader of the Opposition) - The State Opposition is happy to support this bill which will synchronise daylight saving across the States of Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory - and also South Australia, although we note that they will continue to remain and hour and a half behind the times, which some may consider appropriate for our friends in South Australia, but with good reason. The benefits are well documented. I will not detail each of those but obviously the benefits to our tourism industry are important with the better scheduling of flights and so on and the ability to better synchronise business transactions across Bass Strait and interstate. As well as increasing commercial efficiencies and assisting productivity, it will extend the lifestyle benefits that Tasmanians enjoy by an extra week of daylight saving.

I will go through the mechanics of what is occurring to make this synchronisation come into effect. The legislation is relatively straightforward, although I must say, even coming from a legal background, it took a little while to get my head around clause 5. I might just read it is so that members can appreciate exactly what an extraordinary piece of drafting it is. No doubt it makes perfect sense and has a great deal of import, but it took a little while to get my head around it. It says this:

'Notwithstanding anything in legal instrument, where any time or period of time is prescribed, specified or stipulated as the time at which, or the period of time for which or during which, or any part of which, the doing of any act, matter or thing is required, permitted or prohibited, that time, period of time or part of a period of time, as the case may be, is, with respect to any period during which Tasmanian summer time is fixed under this Act to be in advance of standard time, to be held to be, and is to be determined by reference to, Tasmanian summer time unless the contrary is expressed, provided or stipulated in that legal instrument.'

That is all one sentence too. Thank God the clause notes explained exactly what that does.

Mr Gutwein - Well, what does it do?

Mr WILL HODGMAN - I could read the clause notes, but that is probably a question for the Premier. So that was interesting in reading the bill. I assume the case that arose in respect to the Commonwealth Games, and also the Olympic Games in 2000, required the introduction of a bill in the House, so I can see why that makes sense. I appreciate that it is probably not going to occur too often and can be better handled by regulation, but it is a positive step forward. We are pleased to see that Tasmania has led the way in having this brought about.

It is appropriate that South Australia remains behind the times, and that -

Mr Llewellyn - Yes, because the sun takes longer to get there.

Mr WILL HODGMAN - Yes, and rightly so. Anyway, it is a good step forward and we are pleased to support the bill.

[11.57 a.m.]

Ms PUTT - (Denison - Leader of the Greens) - The Greens will also support the bill. I have had the pleasure of standing in this place on a number of occasions and extolling the virtues of daylight saving. I certainly enjoy that time of year and always look forward to it coming around. I always feel a little sad when it ends and we no longer have the long evenings, so I am very pleased to see we are going to get at least one extra week at the end of the daylight saving period.

I think it makes sense that the bill is supported by regulation rather than having to repeatedly come back year after year, which I understand is the situation we are moving to, as well as synchronising with New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT and South Australia. That is obviously going to be useful, because I know when I make phone calls interstate I discover that no-one has reached the office over there when our daylight saving period first comes in. I tend to have forgotten that we are actually an hour in front of those other States, and that is a bit of an impediment.

I did want to just briefly address the fact that Queensland is not taking a part in this by regaling the House with a slightly cleaned-up version of a joke about this in relation to Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who of course opposed that Queensland should get involved with daylight saving. It is reputed, of course, that Mr Bjelke-Petersen believed that the sun shone out of him and that he was not going to get up an hour earlier for anybody.

I also have here a letter which I found when I was tidying up my e-mails lately, a letter that was published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Monday, 16 April. It was entitled 'Daylight Exacerbates Warming'. This is the letter to the editor:

'You may have noticed that March of this year was particularly hot. As a matter of fact I understand that it was hottest March since the beginning of the last century. All of the trees were fully leafed out and legions of bugs and snakes were crawling around during a time in Arkansas when, on a normal year, we might see a snowflake or two.

This should come as no surprise to any reasonable person. As you know, Daylight Saving Time started almost a month early this year. You would think that members of Congress would have considered the warming effect that an extra hour of daylight would have on our climate. Or did they?

Perhaps this is another plot by a liberal Congress to make us believe that global warming is a real threat. Perhaps next time there should be serious studies performed before Congress passes laws with such far-reaching effects.

Connie M. Meskimen

Hot Springs.'

Perhaps this is all a dastardly plot of a liberal government - with a small 'l' - but I am prepared to go along with it.

Bill read the second time and taken through the remaining stages.