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At a Council for the Australian Federation meeting held in Canberra on
12 April 2007, the ACT agreed to a commitment with Victoria, New South Wales (NSW) and Tasmania to start daylight savings on the first Sunday in October and end on the first Sunday in April.

On 12 June 2007, the ACT, NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania formally agreed to harmonise daylight savings arrangements from April 2008. This delivers on a long held desire to bring daylight saving in line with most other States in Australia.

The ACT’s agreement was made on the proviso that NSW agreed to the change in daylight savings starting and finishing times. On 23 October 2007, the NSW Parliament passed its amending legislation.

As agreed, the NSW legislation extends the daylight saving period so that it will start in each year on the first Sunday in October (rather than the last Sunday in October) and end on the first Sunday in April (rather than the last Sunday in March) in the following year.

The NSW legislation also provided as a transitional arrangement that the current daylight saving period would commence on 28 October 2007, in accordance with existing arrangements, and end on 6 April 2008 in accordance with the new arrangements.

The Standard Time and Summer Time Act 1972 (the Act) is the Act that establishes standard time and summer time periods in the ACT. Currently the Act provides that daylight savings starts on the last Sunday in October and ends on the last Sunday in March each year, unless the responsible Minister declares a different daylight savings period.

On 27 August 2007, in order for the ACT to give effect to the agreed transitional arrangements, the Minister for Industrial Relations declared by notifiable instrument a variation to the 2007-08 summer time period so that it commenced on
28 October 2007 and will end on 6 April 2008 as per the NSW legislation.

This Bill provides a permanent arrangement for the future harmonization of daylight saving periods (defined as summer time period for the purposes of the Act) so that the periods will start in each year on the first Sunday in October (rather than the last Sunday in October) and end on the first Sunday in April (rather than the last Sunday in March) in the following year.

This is a technical clause that names the Act. The name of the Act is the Standard Time and Summer Time Amendment Act 2008.

The Act commences on the day following the day the Act is notified on the ACT’s Legislation Register.

This clause identifies the Act to be amended, namely the Standard Time and Summer Time Act 1972.

This clause provides a new definition of summer time period, namely that it will start in each year on the first Sunday in October (rather than the last Sunday in October) and end on the first Sunday in April (rather than the last Sunday in March) in the following year.