[tz] Australian Timezone Abreviations - Next step

[Alan Barrett]

On Thu, 11 Oct 2012, Shaun Bouckaert wrote:
>I honestly believe that the only argument for the status quo on this
>issue is that it's been this way for a long time.

The main argument, I think, is that people in Australia don't 
agree among themselves, so there is no basis for making any sort 
of change in the TZ database.

If you can get the people in Australia to agree with each other, 
or if they already agree with each other then if you can document 
such agreement, then I think that it will be easy to persuade 
the tzdata community.  On the other hand, as long as the tzdata 
community is under the impression that there is no agreement 
within Australia, then it will be very difficult to persuade the 
tzdata community to make any changes.

> I have previously presented many good arguments as to why it 
> needs to be updated to reflect what is widely used amongst 
> government and private organisations across the country, and 
> what is presented by the federal government on this page 
> http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/our-country/time

Some .gov.au web sites use three-letter abbreviations like 
"EST" and some use four letter abbreviationslike "AEST", as can 
easily be found by a google search for 'domain:.gov.au time 
zone EST|AEST'.  If you think that one set of abbreviations is 
correct and the other set is incorrect, then, to make a convincing 
argument, you need to do a lot more than selectively quote from 
just one site.

> Hopefully, with responses from the relevant state departments, 
> this issue can be resolved and put to bed.

Yes, official statements from national and state government 
departments would be useful.

--apb (Alan Barrett)