Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner says it's time Queenslanders had a fresh say on whether daylight saving should be reintroduced, 30 years after the last referendum.
Key points:
- It's thirty years since Queensland had a full referendum on daylight saving
- Two south-east Queensland mayors are calling for a new referendum
- The state government in December said it was not a priority
Queensland last trialled daylight saving in the early 1990s, with a referendum in February 1992 narrowly deciding against continuing it.
At the time, votes in favour of daylight saving were higher in south-east Queensland and lower in the north and west of the state.
But 30 years later, Cr Schrinner said it was time for new generations to have their say on whether it should be reintroduced in a bid to give Queenslanders more evening sunlight and improve connections between the states.
Cr Schrinner said he calculated three million Queenslanders out of the state's 5.1 million population had no input on the 1992 referendum.
"There is a massive per cent of our population that just hasn't had a say on daylight saving. They would like to have a say, but they didn't get a say," he said.
Not a state priority
Late last year, Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman responded to a petition signed by more than 18,500 people calling for daylight saving.
Ms Fentiman wrote that it was "not currently under consideration", but noted the petitioner's arguments that daylight saving would ease social disadvantage and bring Queensland into synchronicity with the southern states.
University of Queensland political lecturer Graeme Orr said rather than call a full referendum, the government could simply run several opinion polls as a cheaper option to take the community's temperature.
He said it was not a constitutional issue, but a "social question".
2024 referendum proposal
Previous attempts to bring daylight saving back post-1992 included whether it should be reintroduced only for south-east Queensland.
Cr Schrinner suggested a referendum could be tied to the 2024 state or local government elections.
"The great thing about the 2024 opportunity is we could have a trial the next summer, the 2022-23 summer … to give people an opportunity to see how it goes," he said.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate threw his support behind the proposal, saying a referendum would "keep politicians out of daylight saving considerations".
"Let Queenslanders decide without political influence," Cr Tate said.