From The Summary Podcast - Is Daylight Saving Killing Australian Productivity?

Time zones have existed for a little over 100 years, and almost immediately when time zones were implemented, people realized that they were not fit for purpose year-round.

There had already been some movements to observe sort of an informal daylight saving.

In fact, when Benjamin Franklin visited Paris in the 1780s, he observed that they were, um, observing summertime in Paris to save on candle wax.

So this idea that, that humans have shifted their activities forward or backward a- around the clock has been a longstanding thing.

Now, Australia and other countries experimented with daylight saving during the wars, so 1917-ish and around 1943 as well, and then it came into statutory practice from the early '70s onward as predominantly the southern states realized that it would be beneficial to lifestyle and to economics.

And so is that one of the reasons that Queensland has been hesitant to adopt it because they don't see those same lifestyle benefits because of the, the difference of the days there?

Yeah, it's, it's a tricky one.

The Queensland issue has more to do with geography.

Queensland is a huge state, right? Many times the size of Victoria, and so what's good for one part of Queensland is not necessarily good for another part of Queensland geographically.

And then that's compounded with some cultural factors, this idea that country folk might like to wake up earlier and city folk might stay up later because of the bright lights, which is certainly true.

You can see it in the data.

And then also compounded by the fact that there are different occupational profiles.

So people in regions might work in resources, they might work in farming, and they might work in occupations that require daylight and therefore adapt their activities to when it, it, it's light outside.

In urban environments, we're much more likely to work indoors in offices, and so the amount of daylight we get is heavily conditioned by the hours that we work or the hours that we're in school.

And those differences in professions and things we often see come out in the, the reasons why people don't like daylight savings.

Sometimes it's the curtains.

Other times, the cows might get confused if you change what time they milk.

So some interesting reasons that people say they don't want to see it adopted.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, I think these are a bit tongue in cheek, and certainly there are dairy cattle in Victoria that, that do just fine.

There is a meaningful difference in occupation.

So I did some research about four years ago where I surveyed 1,000 Australians across all states and territories to see what their attitudes were, and we found some pretty f- meaningful differences in political affiliation and also some pretty meaningful differences in terms of occupation.

So laborers and outdoor workers were about 50/50, whereas professionals, white-collar workers were almost 80/20 in favor, even 85/15 in favor.

So occupation plays a huge role, partly because tradies and other occupations who work on site need to be up quite early, so for them, the sun, the sun's shining when they're awake anyway, and also partly because they're outdoors all day.

So whether they get an extra hour after daylight is immaterial if they've already gotten nine or 10 hours on the site.

Time zones have existed for a little over 100 years, and almost immediately when time zones were implemented, people realized that they were not fit for purpose year-round.

There had already been some movements to observe sort of an informal daylight saving.

In fact, when Benjamin Franklin visited Paris in the 1780s, he observed that they were, um, observing summertime in Paris to save on candle wax.

So this idea that, that humans have shifted their activities forward or backward a- around the clock has been a longstanding thing.

Now, Australia and other countries experimented with daylight saving during the wars, so 1917-ish and around 1943 as well, and then it came into statutory practice from the early '70s onward as predominantly the southern states realized that it would be beneficial to lifestyle and to economics.

And so is that one of the reasons that Queensland has been hesitant to adopt it because they don't see those same lifestyle benefits because of the, the difference of the days there?

Yeah, it's, it's a tricky one.

The Queensland issue has more to do with geography.

Queensland is a huge state, right? Many times the size of Victoria, and so what's good for one part of Queensland is not necessarily good for another part of Queensland geographically.

And then that's compounded with some cultural factors, this idea that country folk might like to wake up earlier and city folk might stay up later because of the bright lights, which is certainly true.

You can see it in the data.

And then also compounded by the fact that there are different occupational profiles.

So people in regions might work in resources, they might work in farming, and they might work in occupations that require daylight and therefore adapt their activities to when it, it, it's light outside.

In urban environments, we're much more likely to work indoors in offices, and so the amount of daylight we get is heavily conditioned by the hours that we work or the hours that we're in school.

And those differences in professions and things we often see come out in the, the reasons why people don't like daylight savings.

Sometimes it's the curtains.

Other times, the cows might get confused if you change what time they milk.

So some interesting reasons that people say they don't want to see it adopted.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, I think these are a bit tongue in cheek, and certainly there are dairy cattle in Victoria that, that do just fine.

There is a meaningful difference in occupation.

So I did some research about four years ago where I surveyed 1,000 Australians across all states and territories to see what their attitudes were, and we found some pretty f- meaningful differences in political affiliation and also some pretty meaningful differences in terms of occupation.

So laborers and outdoor workers were about 50/50, whereas professionals, white-collar workers were almost 80/20 in favor, even 85/15 in favor.

So occupation plays a huge role, partly because tradies and other occupations who work on site need to be up quite early, so for them, the sun, the sun's shining when they're awake anyway, and also partly because they're outdoors all day.

So whether they get an extra hour after daylight is immaterial if they've already gotten nine or 10 hours on the site.