West Australia DST: to be or not to be

[Paul Eggert]

Christopher Hunt <huntc at internode.on.net> writes:

> The answer appears to be yes - WA are trialing DST for three years. 
> Daylight savings kicks in as follows:
>
> (a) the hour of 2 a.m. on 3 December 2006 until the hour of
> 2 a.m. on 25 March 2007; and
> (b) the hour of 2 a.m. on 28 October 2007 until the hour of
> 10 2 a.m. on 30 March 2008; and
> (c) the hour of 2 a.m. on 26 October 2008 until the hour of
> 2 a.m. on 29 March 2009,

Weird.  I just followed the URL you gave, which led me to
<http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/parliament/bills.nsf/62D4F7C55EA88993482572110007316A/$File/Bill174-1.pdf>,
and Part 2 s. 4 (page 3) specifies December 1, not December 3.  Surely
December 3 (a Sunday) is right, but it's a bit disconcerting that the
"official" reference gets it wrong.

The "official" reference also says that the March transitions are at 3
a.m. local time (2 a.m. standard time).  I assume this is right, as
it's the Australian tradition.

Since the voters of Western Australia may well overturn this change,
we'll have to revisit it in February or March.  But in the meantime I
suppose we should record the "official" rules (corrected to Dec. 3).

In Adamson Rust's article "Daylight saving move upsets system guys"
today <http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35910>, a
"senior technology guy" is quoted as saying "The brainiac wonders who
govern (sic) this place have just passed the act to start daylight
savings in WA. Starting on the first weekend in Dec. Yes, this
December."  Western Australia farmers also disapproved of the change.
See -- sysadmins and farmers have something in common!

I'll propose a patch shortly.  Thanks for letting us know.