on australian time zone names and abbreviations

Andrew Shebanow Shebanow at placeware.com
Fri Aug 17 01:15:56 UTC 2001


OK, I got dragged, bleeding and screaming, into the tar pit of time zone
names by one of PlaceWare's Australian customers, who didn't like the
fact that Java (1.3.1, at least) formats the time zone for
'Australia/Syndey' as "Eastern Standard Time (New South Wales)", or
"EAT" for short.

So I did a little research using google, the java sources, and the tz
database. Here's what I found that may be relevant, but the bad news is
it completely contradicts much of the info in your 'australasia' file.
The link http://www.dstc.qut.edu.au/DST/marg/daylight-other.html lists
the following as the standard names and abbreviations of time zones in
Australia, quoting a source at Australia's National Standards
Commission:

-------------------------------------
AEST Australian Eastern Standard Time (+10 UTC) 
AEDT Australian Eastern Daylight Time (+11 UTC) 
ACST Australian Central Standard Time (+9.5 UTC) 
ACDT Australian Central Daylight Time (+10.5 UTC) 
AWST Australian Western Standard Time (+8 UTC)

Note: AWDT Australian Western Daylight Time (+9 UTC) is a standard
abbreviation, but as there is no daylight saving in the Australian
western time zone, it is not used. 

Are the above abbreviations correct? Here is what the Australian
National Standards Commission has said:

From: Richard Brittain 
Sent: Tuesday, 19 December 2000 2:46 PM
To: Margaret Turner
Subject: RE: Australian Time Zone Abbreviations

Margaret - The abbreviations that you propose to use are correct and in
fact originated from the Post Master Generals Department (PMGs) some
decades ago - the 1960s I believe. There is an AWDT even though it has
not been in use for some years so it should appear in any list that
claims to be comprehensive.

Dr Richard Brittain
Executive Officer, Legal Metrology
National Standards Commission
North Ryde, Sydney.
Ph: +61 2 98883922. 
--------------------------------------

Note that the web page in question is linked to directly by one of the
first reference pages listed in your notes section,
http://www.dstc.qut.edu.au/DST/marg/daylight.html, under the topic "What
are the abbreviations for Australian Time Zones?".

Note also the use of "daylight time", not "summer time", contradicting
John Mackin's note of 1991-03-06.

Now, I'm in no position to judge what the correct official names are,
but I thought I'd share my confusion over what is and is not correct...

Any enlightment you could share would be much appreciated...

Andrew Shebanow
PlaceWare



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