South Australia should align its time zone with the Eastern States because it would deliver savings of more than $500 million per annum for the State’s businesses, according to Director of Policy at Business SA, Rick Cairney.
As the State Government embarked on its consultation to test the public mood for a time change, Business SA drew on an earlier analysis of its membership’s view to come out in support of the proposal.
Cairney said Business SA commissioned the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies to prepare an independent report on the economic benefits to local businesses if South Australia adopted Eastern Standard Time (EST) in 2008. The report indicated that there would be an annual financial gain to South Australian businesses of $569 million from moving to EST. This figure represents administrative cost savings of $118 million and revenue increases of $451 million.
“It is now 2015 and the Premier has called for a state wide consultation process to investigate whether changing our time zone to align with either the eastern states or closer to Western Australia will be of benefit to South Australia,” Cairney said.
“This is an issue that Business SA has being pursuing for some time and it is well overdue that South Australia aligns our time zone with the eastern states. The Centre’s report clearly highlights that there will be potential economic benefits, not to mention the chance to end the confusion that springs from the half an hour difference as there are only one of seven places in the world on a half hour point from the Co-ordinated Universal Time (UTC),” he said.
“China expands across a greater distance than Sydney to Perth and yet only has one time zone for the whole country. South Australia needs to take a serious look at all the compelling factors to change and not just maintain the status quo when there are clear benefits to aligning our time zone to the eastern states.”
During the research conducted in 2008 a number of different businesses across the state were interviewed about how a change in a time zone would impact upon them.
Cairney said a small manufacturing business noted that most of its suppliers were in the eastern states, so a time zone change would allow an extra thirty minutes a day contact time with suppliers, which would be of benefit to their business. A business in the financial sector was also in favour because dealing with international colleagues often caused confusion.
“These case studies just highlight the possible benefits to business in our State and whilst they may seem relatively small impacts in each business it is clear from the Centre for Economic Studies report that these impacts add up to financial gains for South Australian businesses,” Cairney said.
“We must support businesses in South Australia to be able to grow and prosper. Whilst we want to maintain our own identity and character here in South Australia, it’s important that our local businesses are able to compete on even footing with those from NSW or Victoria,” he said.
“We’ve all heard the stories of missed conference calls because our interstate colleagues didn’t factor in the time difference; these missed calls are missed opportunities for South Australian businesses.
“Increasingly South Australia is competing with interstate businesses and governments for the location of head offices and big international conferences, all of which help to grow our economy, and it is vital that there is no barriers to investors choosing South Australia. We need to build sustainable local industries and ensure that there are jobs for our children and we can do this by ensuring that local businesses are operating in the best business environment.
“Business SA looks forward to being involved in the state government consultations led by the Minister for Investment and Trade Martin Hamilton-Smith. As Business SA and its members know, in business time is money, so hopefully this issue of time zone changes can be debated and acted upon once and for all.”
