4 April 2022

Probing the polls: political lies and daylight saving

| Genevieve Jacobs
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Sunrise over Lake Burley Griffin. Image: Cazz

Sunrise over Lake Burley Griffin. Photo: Cazz.

The appearance of a mobile billboard featuring a doctored image of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, so he was ‘voting’ Labor in the next Federal election, prompted a fair bit of shock when it appeared on Canberra’s roads recently.

Although the campaign has preceded the calling of the Federal election, there were plenty who cried foul at the Photoshopped image. It was later revealed to be the handiwork of Advance Australia, a right-wing activist group funded to counteract the perceived influence of GetUp.

In last week’s poll, we asked Does anything go in political advertising? A total of 1330 people participated. Your choices were Yes, so long as it’s authorised and inside the law. This received 9 per cent of the total, or 118 votes. Alternatively, you could choose No, clear lies should be banned. This was overwhelmingly the winner with 91 per cent of the total, or 1212 votes.

This week, we’re wondering about daylight saving.

Daylight saving ended on Sunday and it couldn’t come soon enough for Ian Bushnell who, like many of us, was sick of the dark mornings and has come to question the value of daylight saving altogether.

“Each morning, it seems like you’re up preparing for one of those all-day drives to Queensland, sitting down to breakfast in the dark and heading off in the post-dawn glimmer,” he wrote.

“It may not be a high order issue in these disturbing times, but it would not take much to admit the twice a year time trick is a failed experiment that just doesn’t deliver the benefits proponents say it does and causes a bunch of problems that we don’t need.

“God’s time has worked since the beginning. That’s good enough for me.”

READ ALSO It’s time to ditch daylight saving – for good

There was wide disagreement among the commenters (and plenty of sniggering about faded curtains).

Zoe Liu said: “Couldn’t agree more. Manipulating time is bad for our bodies. I always feel miserable during the changeover period. Is there a petition that we can sign to ditch daylight saving?”

But Andrew Sutton noted: “Our climate and positioning is perfect for daylight saving, so whilst it should remain, it could end a week or so earlier as the mornings feel more like winter.”

Others questioned our journalist’s commitment to exercise and fresh air.

“Says a guy who obviously has no life in the outdoors. Imagine wanting less daylight after you finish work because you don’t like getting up in the dark,” Lejla Nikolas wrote. (For the record, and as Mr Bushnell noted in the opinion piece, he enjoys an early morning walk.)

Our question this week is:

Should we ditch daylight saving?

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Completely agree with Ian Bushnell daylight savings needs to go!!

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