Following the April 2009 decision by the Government, the daylight saving period in South Australia is from the first Sunday in October each year until the first Sunday in April the following year, on an ongoing basis.

As noted in the news statement of the Minister for Industrial Relations, the extended daylight saving period will reduce cost and confusion for businesses across the state, by maintaining a consistent time differential of half an hour with New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the ACT for the entire year.

For further details see the 28 April 2009 News Statement, Dates set for SA's ongoing daylight saving released by the Minister for Industrial Relations.

Daylight saving periods in South Australia from 2009/10 to 2013/14

2009/10 - 4 October 2009 to 4 April 2010
2010/11 - 3 October 2010 to 3 April 2011
2011/12 - 2 October 2011 to 1 April 2012
2012/13 - 7 October 2012 to 7 April 2013
2013/14 - 6 October 2013 to 6 April 2014

Community consultation results

As part of the trial of extended daylight saving arrangements for 2008, the Government requested SafeWork SA to undertake community consultation. This community consultation can be broken into three segments:

• independent telephone survey by Harrison Research
• self-initiated responses to SafeWork SA or the Minister for Industrial Relations (comprising website survey, emails and letters)
• online survey of the State Strategic Plan Consultation Group.

Care should be taken when utilising the results of the self-initiated responses and the State Strategic Plan Consultation Group Survay as these were not random samples and were not statistically weighted for population distribution, age and gender. The results could therefore be unreliable for statistical purposes.

Population distribution data from the ABS 2006 Census indicates 74% reside in the Adelaide metropolitan area and 26% in regional areas of South Australia. As an example, if these population proportions are applied to the self-initiated responses SafeWork SA received, the weighted result indicated overall majority support (54%) for an extension.

The Harrison Research telephone survey provides a statistically valid result of a random stratified sample of residents in South Australia. The results reveal a moderate to high level of support for an extension of the period of daylight saving. The weighted results of this survey indicate 59% of the community support the extension, 25% oppose extended periods and 16% either support or oppose extended periods. When the undecided responses are removed, the level of overall support increases to 70%.

The results of the survey of the State Strategic Plan Consultation Group also need slight adjustment when weighted for population distribution as above. The population-weighted results of this survey would show an overall level of support for an extension of 83%.

View the consultation results below:

Related links:

News Releases