 |
 |
DST (Daylight Saving Time) in New
Zealand will was terminated on April 5, 2009. The
clocks were moved back by an hour from 3:00 a.m. to
2:00 a.m. local time as soon as the schedule ended.
Some regions in Australia also terminated their own
daylight saving schedule from 2008 to 2009 on the
same date.
The main islands of New Zealand, including those of
the Chatham Islands wound up the clock back by an
hour on the 5th of April, 2009. The main islands of
New Zealand switched from NZDT (New Zealand Daylight
Time) to NZST (New Zealand Standard Time). This
means the time in New Zealand was thirteen hours
ahead of UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) which is
usually depicted as UTC+13 during NZDT but will now
be just twelve hours ahead or UTC+12. |
On the same day, the Chatham Islands moved from UTC+13:45 to
UTC+12:45. The time in Tokelau and the Cook Islands remained
the same which is UTC-10. The same goes with Niue which is
UTC-11 due to their non-observance of daylight saving time.
Niue and the Cook Islands have a free association with New
Zealand while Tokelau is a territory of New Zealand.
In 2007, the Minister of Internal Affairs of New Zealand,
Rick Barker, announced the country’s extension of the
daylight saving schedule. This decision was the direct
result of a survey that showed that citizens preferred that
the daylight saving time be extended.
Today, daylight saving time starts in New Zealand on
September’s last Saturday every year and ends on April’s
first Sunday the next year.
|
This means 2:00
a.m. will become 3:00 a.m. and when it ends, 3:00
a.m. will move back to 2:00 a.m. in New Zealand.
This year’s daylight saving time schedule started on
the 27th of September, 2009, Sunday.
This schedule
will end on the 4th of April 2010, Sunday.
2010 to
2011’s daylight saving time schedule will commence
on the 26th of September, 2010, Sunday.
The Internal Affairs Department of New Zealand
claims that New Zealand was one of the world’s first
countries to adopt officially a standard time which
is nationally observed.
New Zealand’s Mean Time was
adopted in 1868 of November and it was set at eleven
hours and thirty minutes ahead of GMT (Greenwich
Mean Time). |
Greenwich Mean Time was instituted in
the 1840s by British Railways but was not adopted by Great
Britain as its standard time until the 1880s.
Because of the Second World War’s emergency regulations in
1941, New Zealand clocks were moved up half an hour. The
1945 Standard Time Act made this advance permanent. This
meant that the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and
Greenwich Mean Time in New Zealand was set at twelve hours
in advance. This was denoted as GMT+12 (GMT plus 12 hours)
and UTC+12 (UTC plus 12 hours).
Currently, New Zealand Standard Time is defined in the 1974
Time Act as twelve hours in advance of Coordinated Universal
Time (UTC). Chatham Islands time was set forty five minutes
ahead of New Zealand’s Standard Time.
|
|