Time Zones in Australia, Daylight Savings Time

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Time Zones of Australia

Due to the wide size of Australia, the continent stretches out over three time zones. Australia is ahead of time - compared to America, Africa, Europe and big parts of Asia. New Zealand and a few insular states are ahead of Down Under time. They are located between the Red Continent and the international dateline in the South Pacific Ocean. The Australian states Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory follow Australian Eastern Standard Time, (Abbreviation: AEST). One exception is Broken Hill in the far west of New South Wales. Broken Hill follows Australian Central Standard Time (ACST) as the Northern Territory and South Australia. Western Australia follows Australian Western Standard Time (AWST).

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Daylight Savings Time (DST)

Without Daylight Savings Time (DST), it would be quite easy to calculate local Australian time. Here an example: Imagine your location is Europe which follows Central European Time (CET). Now you had to add seven hours to get AWST, eight and a half hours to get ACST and nine hours to get AEST. Nobody thought about summer or winter. That is different now. It depends where you are in the world, but you have to consider that Australia is located in the southern hemisphere, so spring, summer, autumn and winter is vice versa in comparison to the northern hemisphere. Another point: Some Australian states don't

follow Daylight Savings Time and some do. That makes things sometimes a bit confusing. The Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria follow Daylight Savings Time. The Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia do not follow DST. Western Australia had Daylight Savings Time on probation for a period of three years. Then a referendum was held on the 16th of May 2009 when people of Western Australia were asked to vote for or against daylight Savings Time. The result: 45,44 % voted in favour of Daylight Savings Time, 54,56 % voted against it.

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The governments of the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria worked out an agreement to observe Daylight Savings Time for the same period, starting with the 2008/2009 season. Currently DST starts in Australia from the first Sunday in October to the first Sunday in April. That is different in comparison to Europe and the United States. Anyway, most Daylight Savings Times around the world are unequal. The following list shows the time difference between Australia and UTC (Universal Time Coordinated, also known as GMT, Greenwich Mean Time).

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Time Difference between Australia and UCT


	Standard Time	Daylight Savinge Time	Time Zone

Northern Territory	UTC +9,5 h	No	ACST

Queensland	UTC +10 h	No	AEST

Western Australia	UTC +8 h	No	AWST



ACT	UTC +10 h	UTC +11 h	AEST

New South Wales	UTC +10 h	UTC +11 h	AEST

South Australia	UTC +9,5 h	UTC +10,5 h	ACST

Tasmania	UTC +10 h	UTC +11 h	AEST

Victoria	UTC +10 h	UTC +11 h	AEST

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Time Zones in Australia, Daylight Savings Time

Time Zones of Australia

Daylight Savings Time (DST)

Time Difference between Australia and UCT

Local times in Australia