Queensland Daylight Saving Time was last tested in the 90s. Two mayors want today’s voters to have a say
Brisbane Mayor Adrian Schrinner has said it’s time Queenslanders had a new say on the reintroduction of daylight saving time, 30 years after the last referendum.
Key points:
- It’s been thirty years since Queensland held a full referendum on daylight saving time
- Two south-east Queensland mayors call for another referendum
- The state government said in December it was not a priority
Queensland last tested daylight saving time in the early 1990s, with a referendum in February 1992 narrowly deciding not to continue it.
At the time, DST votes were highest in South East Queensland and lowest in the North and West of the state.
But 30 years later, Cr Schrinner said it was time for new generations to have their say on whether it should be reintroduced in a bid to give Queenslanders more evening sunshine and improve connections between states.
Cr Schrinner said he calculated that three million Queenslanders out of the state’s 5.1 million people had no contribution to the 1992 referendum.
“There’s a massive percentage of our population who just haven’t had a say in daylight saving time. They would like to have a say in it, but they haven’t had a say in it” , did he declare.
Not a state priority
Late last year, Attorney General Shannon Fentiman responded to a petition signed by more than 18,500 people calling for daylight saving time.
Ms Fentiman wrote that it was “not currently under consideration”, but noted the petitioner’s arguments that daylight saving time would alleviate social disadvantage and bring Queensland into sync with southern states.
University of Queensland political lecturer Graeme Orr said rather than calling a full referendum, the government could simply hold several opinion polls as a cheaper option to take the temperature of the community.
He said it was not a constitutional issue, but a “social issue”.
2024 Referendum Proposal
Previous attempts to bring back DST after 1992 included the question of whether it should be reintroduced only for South East Queensland.
Cr Schrinner has suggested a referendum could be tied to the 2024 national or local elections.
“The great thing about the 2024 opportunity is that we could have a tryout next summer, summer 2022-23… to give people a chance to see how it goes,” he said. declared.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate gave his backing to the proposal, saying a referendum would “steer politicians away from DST considerations”.
“Let the people of Queensland decide without political influence,” said Cr Tate.