This is my yearly column that always appears in October (and has been doing so since 2000) on the ‘Great Debate on Daylight Saving’.
But to celebrate my 25th opinion on this, I might tell the whole truth on why I used to be against it.
When we trialled daylight saving in the ’80s and early ’90s, the one thing I did notice while running the Mooloolaba Hotel was that during the week, tradies wouldn’t head to the public bar after work.
They would actually do something with their families – going to the beach or fishing rather than sitting in the pub drinking beer and paying my wages.
So, I was automatically against it.
How dare they abandon me for their families?
I had bills to pay.
They also came out later on the weekends which meant longer hours on the roster, but we would take about the same amount of money or even less – again, not acceptable.
In those days, with trading to 5am, it started to look like India and Japan where they don’t start going out until 10pm and eat around 11ish (although the only thing you could get at Mooloolaba in those days was a slice of overpriced pizza – so again, I wasn’t a fan).
That’s the real reason I didn’t like daylight saving back then.
Of course, the easy explanation was that with more sun, the curtains would fade and the cows were confused about when to get milked.
I was more than happy to just toss that up.
Why, you may well ask?
Probably just to annoy all the southerners who are pretty sure they are smarter than us and continue to move up here and try and change what we do.
These days I am not locked in to trying to keep people on the drinks, as we are far more health conscious than decades ago and I am a bit more responsible, I think.
I still don’t like it, though.
If it goes ahead, it will divide the state: the far north and west will feel even more ignored by the south-east.
Let’s face it, we are one state and should be supporting our regions like they support us.
‘Smart State’? I’m not so sure, but we at least should be united against the southern scourge – just like during the State of Origin.
And if it means upsetting a few who want to change us, I can still go with “I can’t afford new curtains and I don’t want to confuse the cows”.
Ashley Robinson is chairman of Sunshine Coast Falcons and Sunshine Coast Thunder Netball and a lifetime Sunshine Coast resident.
