FW: Update on Australian Time Zone changes for Olympics

[Paul Eggert]

   From:	Eric Ulevik [SMTP:eauz at zip.com.au]
   Sent:	Sunday, August 13, 2000 1:19 AM

     - Twin Towns Services Club (in Tweed Heads, near the Queensland border)
       will maintain Queensland time. The Queensland Premier Peter Beattie
       is encouraging northern NSW towns to use Queensland time.

Thanks for the info.  If it's just the one club, I'll add this as a
comment.  It sounds like Pangnirtung, where there is an official time
which some people use, and a dissenters' time which other people use.
The tz database is not set up for disputes like that (yet), so it just
records the official time for now.


   Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2000 12:02:01 +1000
   From: Alex LIVINGSTON <alex at agsm.edu.au>

   1. South Australia, if it does stick to its habit of the last several 
   years (and there is renewed debate about that, I heard this morning), 
   will start daylight saving on the last Sunday of October, and not 
   September 29.

Yes, this matches the current tz data.

   Correct me if I'm wrong, but DST has never been started at the end
   of September in Australia (at least not in the 30+ years I've been
   living here).

Yes.  According to the tz data, the last (and only) time it occurred
at the end of September was on September 27, 1942.

   2. the Worldwide Holiday & Festival Site, 
   http://www.holidayfestival.com/, seems to believe that Broken Hill 
   (or the shire that contains it, which I can't remember the name of 
   right now) will be starting daylight saving with the rest of NSW. 
   ... Does this reflect the current tzdata?

No.  The current tz data has Broken Hill starting daylight saving on
October 29 at 02:00, whereas the rest of NSW will start on August 27
at 02:00.  That is, the tz data claims that Broken Hill is in lockstep
with Adelaide starting this year.  Here's the story that prompted this
claim:

http://abc.net.au/news/regionals/brokenh/monthly/regbrok-21jul1999-6.htm


The tz data also claims that between 1971 and 1999 inclusive, Broken
Hill was at UTC+09:30 but used NSW's rules rather than South
Australia's rules, which meant that occasionally it was an island of
its own.  This is a little hard to believe, I agree, but it's what
George Shepherd told us how it worked as of 1991, and he confirmed it
with the Broken Hill Postmaster.