John Singleton with Bob HowardRip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 65-66, under the heading “Daylight Saving”.

Daylight saving is a convenience and a joy. There are, however, some who don’t like it. What can they do? Do we simply say once more, “Well, tough luck. You’re in a minority.”? Do we simply resort to the numbers game again? Is it a case of either the majority forcing the minority to comply with its wishes, or the minority forcing the majority to comply with its wishes? Or is there a way to accommodate both and have neither group force their will upon the other? To find an answer perhaps we should look at what we need “time” measurement for in the first place.

Clearly, a man alone on the island we mentioned earlier has no need of it. Nature would provide him with the only guide he needed: night and day. Until, that is, he started to boil an egg, bake a cake, smelt some metal or develop a system of mathematics or physics. He would need it then to measure and calculate. How could speed be measured without time, for example?

Furthermore, if there was another person on the island, time would be convenient for when they arranged appointments to meet one another. So time has a social function of providing a means of putting order in human behaviour. Appointments are set with time, wages are calculated on time, transport schedules are ordered by time, and so on.

Given these needs for a system of measuring time, can we deduce that the government, therefore, has a responsibility to determine what our time system is going to be? Clearly, the answer is no. There are many arguments of convenience that can be advanced. The prospect of competing time systems may horrify people. The fact remains, however, that in a free country, people should be able to choose to operate by whatever system of time they want. They should not have a time system imposed upon them. What would this mean? The obvious conclusion is chaos. Obvious, but wrong. It is in nobody’s interest to have chaos, and so a system or systems of time would be quickly worked out. How? Time measurement is no problem. We have the technology needed to measure time. Furthermore, there is no reason that we are aware of to consider changing from the units of time we already have (seconds, minutes, hours) although it is no doubt possible that a better one has been thought of somewhere.

The only problem that is likely to exist is the setting of the time, and for this the obvious answer is for TV or radio stations to set it. These would probably settle on a common system for their own convenience. Telephone companies could set it, or someone could put a clock up on a tall building, but, the most simple and convenient method on the market of setting and synchronizing time would be by TV and radio. It is a fair bet that today that’s what most people set their watches by.

If they did do this, and agreed on a standard time, how is that different from what we have now? In one way — there exists the possibility of choice. Radio and TV stations compete for audiences. If a TV station, for example, figured that most people wanted daylight saving, then they could change their time system. If their estimate was right, they would have a majority of people ordering their affairs by their time system, and tuning in to their station to check their time. If they were wrong, they would lose on the market.

If, as we have now, a small town or district somewhere disagreed with them (as they do in some areas of western N.S.W., for example), then their local radio or TV station would keep the old system to reflect the views of its market. The difficulties created would be no worse than those existing on the N.S.W. Queensland border now because our governments disagree. The essential point is that a maximum number of people would be satisfied, and nobody would be coerced — not any more than they are “coerced” anywhere else on the market. There is a difference between being forced to pay ten dollars for a product because the government fixes the price there, and paying ten dollars for it because that’s the market price. There is a difference in principle in the way the price is determined. The same applies to the setting of the time.

You might be tempted to think that this is a big fuss about nothing but: (1) it illustrates a matter of principle; (2) it allows dissidents the possibility of choice; (3) it is a consistent application of our principles; and (4) if we had had this system you can bet we would have had daylight saving long before we did. Governments institutionalise mistakes, whereas the market eliminates them. Markets respond quickly to consumer demand, whereas governments don’t. The issue might be a small one, but the lesson it carries is not.