Daylight Raving

It's that time again. We're hearing the usual bleating from the white-shoe brigade about the misery they're enduring because Queensland hasn't embraced daylight saving.

I can remember the last time Queensland flirted with the notion. At the time I was living and working in Mount Isa. I won't ever forget the sight of people going for "evening" walks with hats and sunscreen, or dragging the kids out of bed in the pitch dark. It was not a popular notion in a city due North of Adelaide with Summer temperatures in the forties.

Part of the problem, is the idea that the time difference is a North-South issue. It isn't – it is only meaningful in the East-West context, and this is the problem for Queensland. It makes as much sense for our far Western centres to be on South Australian Time as it does for them to be on Daylight Saving Time.

The disregard of our state's geography is common in inhabitants of the South East corner. It should be a legislated requirement for the air-conditioned boardrooms in Brisbane and the Gold Coast to have a map on the wall.

In the meantime – let the masters of the universe get up an hour earlier, and knock off an hour earlier. In the tropics and sub-tropics, the idea is a nonsense.