Dialogue: We're still marching out of time with rest of the world

Daylight saving brings its own annual tensions without the complication that no one else has moved their clocks, writes BOB WALLACE*.

Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, and once again we wonder what on earth time it is.

Well, if you are in New Zealand, you are now out of step with virtually anywhere else in the world that embraces daylight saving, or summer time as it is known in some countries.

While New Zealand has just switched on daylight saving, places such as Australia, the United States and the European Union will not change their clocks until the last weekend of October.

Perhaps New Zealand is first, and alone, because we want to beat everyone else to catch the knowledge wave but probably not.

Whatever, for three weeks New Zealand will be out of kilter, throwing airline timetables, international business communications and long-distance friends and lovers into varying degrees of confusion.

The alarm bells should be ringing about this odd international display of independence. Daylight saving brings its own annual tensions without the complication that no one else has moved their clocks.

The cows and the cockies will once more grump with each other, and the early-morning runners will once more have to avoid going bump with each other, as increasingly lighter mornings are once more reclaimed by the night while the clocks lie to us about what time it is.

Just who decides that it's time to sleep when we want to get up and smell the flowers on spring mornings? Who is the faceless dictator who has planes coming and going from New Zealand in global confusion? How did we get into this state of chronometric dyslexia?

Well, it's all your own doing, if you believe the Department of Internal Affairs, which, apart from the administration of offshore islands, commissions of inquiry, congratulatory messages, flag-hire services and VIP visits and ceremonial events, controls daylight saving.

The official information provided on its website (www.dia.govt.nz) leaves the conclusion that it is public surveys that have put us out of step with the rest of the world.

But it's not surprising that we're ahead of others in changing our clocks. Before the days of daylight saving, New Zealand, it seems, was possibly the first nation in the world to adopt a standard time. It did so in 1868, when it was declared that all over the country (the Chatham Islands excepted) it was 11 hours 30 minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.

Australia had a glorious mismatch along its east coast, with local time depending on longitude (if it was 8.30 in Brisbane, it was 8.18 in Sydney, 8.12 in Melbourne and so on) until 1894, when the Queenslanders led a move to standard time.

Ironically, they are still out front because, after one brief flurry of uniformity with the rest of the east coast, Queensland has decided not to bother with the complications of daylight saving.

Having adopted standard time, New Zealand next advanced itself in 1929, when the Summer Time Act provided for daylight saving. From the second Sunday in October to the third Sunday the following March, clocks were set forward half an hour.

By 1933, the summer time period had been extended from the first Sunday in September to the last Sunday in April, but still with a change of only half an hour from the rest of the year.

Starting in 1941, clocks were advanced half an hour in New Zealand for the duration of the Second World War, making standard time an even 12 hours ahead of Britain. This permanent, year-round summer time was fixed in place by the Standard Time Act of 1945.

But it was the Time Act of 1974 that took us to where we are today. The legislation empowered the Governor-General to declare a period when one hour's daylight saving (on top of the year-round half-hour) could be fixed.

Initially the period was from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in March. In 1988, after a public survey, it was extended significantly - from the second Sunday in October to the third Sunday in March.

And after more feedback (letters sought by the minister from the public), the period went in 1990 to where it is today - from the first Sunday in October to the third Sunday in March.

The surveys covered particular groups of people in society and the effects of daylight saving on work and recreation. Not surprisingly, support for daylight time was generally higher in urban centres. The cockies were ropeable, and many of them still are. And, like the Queenslanders, the people of the Far North are still totally unconvinced.

Of course, as with many other inventions and practices, the Americans started it all.

The concept of daylight saving is generally attributed to scientist-politician Benjamin Franklin. During his sojourn in Paris as American delegate, he wrote about it in an essay in 1784 called An Economical Project.

But the idea was not advocated seriously until 1907, when a London builder, William Willett, produced a pamphlet entitled Waste of Daylight. He saw the clocks being advanced by 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April, retarding them by the same amount on four Sundays in September.

While the idea was ridiculed, one hour of daylight saving was finally adopted by Britain in 1916, the year after Willett's death, but only following the lead of Germany. The motivation was the conservation of coal.

During the Second World War, the energy-saving benefits were recognised in Britain by clocks being changed by two hours, creating what was known as Double Summer Time.

There were still arguments about the concept. Imagine a woman bearing twins, the British were told. One could be born ahead of the other but if daylight saving arrived in between, the order would be reversed.

Such an alteration might conceivably affect the property and titles in that house, thundered a learned critic.

The arguments will no doubt continue. There is equally little doubt there are many advantages in changing our clocks for summer, if only we could march in time with the rest of the world.

* Bob Wallace is a public relations consultant.