Re: OT: Time zone question

li_sasxsek@NUTTER.NET wrote:
>> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Tristan McLeay
>
>
>>> One thing I though was screwy about Oz time was Western
> Australia
>>> being off-alignment from other zones by 30 minutes.  The same
> thing
>>> happens in India.  I'm not quite sure what logic is involved
> there.
>> It's actually central time (i.e. South Australia and the Northern
>> Territory) that's +0930 (standard; +1030 daylight savings in SA
> only).
>> Western Australia is +0800, the same as China.
>>
>> The logic involved is much the same as with having +0900, except
> that
>> you're half an hour ahead of +0900, so you go +0930. Some areas do
>> offsets of a quarter of an hour too, as with the defacto +0845 I
>> mentioned before in eastern Western Australia.
>
> I haven't been anywhere except the Eastern part of the country which
> ISTR was all on a single time, but remember seeing WA on a map and
> scratching my head as to why.  Likewise when going to India and
> seeing it 1/2 hour off from it's neighbors.
I reiterate: WA is +0800, no half an hours there. It is SA and the NT
that are +0930.

The eastern part is all +1000 during winter, but daylight savings rules
differ. Queensland does not use it all --- it would cause cancer and
kill all the school children or something --- and until this year,
Tasmania started before the other states. From this year onwards,
Victoria, New South Wales, the ACT and South Australia start at the same
time as Tasmania. Western Australia is currently doing a three-year
trial and (aside from starting in December the first year, because the
legislation wasn't prepared early enough) they are operating on the old
mainland states' schedule for whole period.