Clocks Back: Why Daylight Saving Still Divides Australia

When clocks wound back an hour across the eastern seaboard over the weekend, most Australians in five states gained an extra hour of sleep. But this simple seasonal ritual masks a century-long debate about whether daylight saving actually serves any purpose – or if it's simply tradition masquerading as sensible policy.

Starting at 3am on Sunday morning, New South Wales, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, Tasmania and South Australia all shifted their clocks back one hour. The shift means both earlier sunrises and sunsets for weeks to come. For those in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, meanwhile, no changes were needed – the three jurisdictions that have long rejected or abandoned the practice, each for their own reasons rooted in geography, agriculture or politics.

The seasonal pattern is now familiar to millions: an automatic shift in how societies mark time, tied not to any natural event but to an arbitrary bureaucratic decision repeated twice yearly across much of the planet. An estimated 40 per cent of the world's population observes some form of daylight saving, including Europe, the United Kingdom, North America and New Zealand – which also reset clocks at the same time as Australia this week.

So what started this practice? The answer traces back to 1895, when a New Zealand insect expert named George Vernon Hudson first suggested it. His logic seemed elegant: instead of wasting daylight in the early morning when most people are asleep, why not shift an hour of that natural light toward the evening, when more people are awake to enjoy it? Rather than rising at 4.45am in summer to see the sun (as happens in some parts of Queensland), you could reset clocks and wake to a 5.45am sunrise – leaving that daylight to extend your evening until 7pm instead of 6pm.

The idea languished until 1908, when the Canadian city of Port Arthur implemented daylight saving after a local businessman pitched it to the town council. His argument was straightforward: an extra hour of daylight in the evening would let children play outdoors longer after school. The concept proved compelling, and other towns and countries followed. During World War I, Germany and Austria adopted it to conserve fuel for military purposes. Other allied nations quickly copied the idea, and during World War II, daylight saving became routine again – a small way to stretch scarce resources in a time of privation.

In Australia, the relationship with daylight saving has always been contentious. Tasmania became the first state to revive the practice in 1967, during a severe drought, reasoning that people would delay turning on lights and conserve hydroelectric power in the process. Most other states introduced it in 1971. But Queensland's history has been one of repeated trial and rejection, driven by farmers, business owners and residents who disagreed about whether that extra evening light was genuinely beneficial – or simply a disruption to routine.

The fundamental question remains unresolved more than a century later: does shifting an hour of daylight genuinely improve quality of life, or is it simply an outdated practice that modern electricity grids have rendered obsolete? The answer varies depending on whom you ask – and which state they call home. For now, five Australian states will enjoy an extra hour this week, while three others keep their clocks exactly where they are.