Daylight Saving Time: Are the clocks moving forward or backward tonight? New timetables in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and other states
Millions of Australians will have to change their clocks with daylight saving time set to come into effect across the country, forcing many to lose an hour of sleep.
Time will be moved forward by 60 minutes in parts of Australia from 2am to 3am on Sunday 1 October.
Residents of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, the ACT and South Australia will lose an extra hour of sleep thanks to the nighttime time jump.
Millions of Australians will lose an hour of sleep on Sunday with Daylight Saving Time until April 2024.
Daylight saving time will end on Sunday April 7, 2024, when those affected will get their sleep time back.
The one-hour jump means Australians get an extra hour of sunshine to enjoy the hottest days of summer.
Not all states and territories in Australia observe daylight saving time.
Queensland, the Northern Territory, Western Australia, Christmas Island and the Cocos Keeling Islands are not participating in the change.
The time will be changed automatically on most internet-connected devices.
Users will need to manually set devices such as analog clocks and older technologies that show the time 60 minutes ahead.
When daylight saving time comes into effect, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania will be on Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT) to indicate Australia’s easternmost time zone during the summer time period.
Norfolk Island will move to Norfolk Island Daylight Time by one hour, while South Australia will move to Australian Central Daylight Time and remain half an hour behind AEDT.
Those who live in jurisdictions without daylight saving time will lag behind most Eastern states.
Queensland will be an hour behind the AEDT states while the Northern Territory will be an hour and a half behind.
WA residents will be three hours behind their AEDT counterparts.
Sydney residents (Sydney Harbour) will be among millions of Australians switching to daylight saving time at 2am on Sunday morning.
Daylight saving time has been a controversial system since its introduction during World War I and World War II.
Most states and territories were forced to switch to daylight saving time in 1971, but Queensland abandoned it the following year.
Residents in the Sunshine State remain divided on the issue, but a recent survey found two-thirds of Queenslanders want to reintroduce daylight saving time.
More than half of voters supported dropping the measure when Queensland held a referendum on daylight saving time in 1992.
Dr Thomas Sigler, a lecturer in human geography at the University of Queensland, who led the survey, told the Courier mail residents strongly supported the reinstatement of daylight saving time.
“Preliminary results show 67 per cent of Queenslanders support it,” Dr Sigler said.
“Anything north of Bundaberg and west of Toowoomba, take that away and 80 per cent are in favor.”
Dr Sigler said daylight saving time had become a political rather than geographical issue, with people in the southeast of the state favoring an hour early.
He said a significant cohort of Queensland’s population would not have voted in the referendum in the 1990s, meaning current views may not reflect current law.
“Next year, no one under 50 would have voted in that first referendum,” he said.
Queenslanders have had a contentious relationship with daylight saving time after residents voted no in a 1992 referendum, but a new survey has found more than half of Queenslanders want the measure be reestablished (photo of Brisbane CBD).
