Why are there different time zones in Australia?
There are different time zones in Australia because the states have a right to pick their own time, and the country is too big for one time zone to realistically work.
Australian time zones
Australia has several different time zones, which is something many visitors might not expect. At time of writing, for example, it is 18.05 in Western Australia, 20.05 in Queensland and 21.05 in New South Wales.
For anyone coming from a country with one single time zone, such as the UK, this might seem a bit weird. After all, Australia is one country – why can’t it have one time zone?
Why Australia has different time zones
There are two reasons for the different time zones in Australia – history and geography.
Australia might be one country now, but that has not always been the case. It started out as a series of separate British colonies, all run largely independent of each other.
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Transport between those colonies was often by sea rather than land, so changing times at the border didn’t really matter. For similar reasons, Australia’s states use different rail gauges, which makes modern train travel in Australia annoyingly different.
Australia became an independent country in 1901 when the colonies federated. But the six states of Australia still have considerable leeway to do their own thing, and having one time zone for the whole country is a non-starter.
This because Australia is enormous. The country covers a continent, and the drive from Perth to Sydney takes 41 hours. Set one time zone for the whole country, and one coast will spend most of the morning in darkness.
Time zones in Australia
Time and Date has a full list of Australian time zones, and it is often bafflingly complex. This is especially the case when you add in the weird anomalies, such as Australian Central Western Standard Time, celebrated by a few Nullarbor Plain roadhouses, and Broken Hill in New South Wales working to South Australian time.
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