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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-05 Daily Xml
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STANDARD TIME BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 4 February 2009. Page 1191.)

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (16:48): I promise to be very brief talking to this bill, given its size. It is really just a measure to transfer from Greenwich Mean Time, which is our current measure, to Coordinated Universal Time, which I am advised is an international time scale recommended by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures as the legal basis for time. I note that this bill does not have anything to do with issues such as daylight saving or shifting to Eastern Standard Time but is merely a means by which we determine the particular reference of time that we are in synch with.

It would probably be beyond the understanding of most of us here; it seems to have some basis in the discipline of physics. I refer members to the minister's second reading explanation of 29 October 2008 in which he states that, whenever the cumulative difference approaches one second, an adjustment is made in Coordinated Universal Time to reduce the gap and that this is particularly important for highly powered new technology involving global positioning systems, computers and so forth that might have very fast transfer of information.

I do not propose to speak any further on it except to say that this will bring us into line with a number of other jurisdictions and nations, and therefore I think it is just a sensible tidying up of South Australia's particular reference to time. I commend the bill to the council.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.

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