Time in New Zealand is divided by law into two

standard Standard may refer to: Symbols * Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs * Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification Norms, conventions or requirements * Standard (metrology), an object th ...

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...

s. The main islands use New Zealand Standard Time (NZST), 12 hours in advance of

Coordinated Universal Time Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about one second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently use ...

(UTC) /

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

M (Mike), while the outlying

Chatham Islands The Chatham Islands ( ) (Moriori: ''Rēkohu'', 'Misty Sun'; mi, Wharekauri) are an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean about east of New Zealand's South Island. They are administered as part of New Zealand. The archipelago consists of about te ...

use Chatham Standard Time (CHAST), 12 hours 45 minutes in advance of UTC / military M^ (Mike-Three). During summer months – from the last Sunday in September until the first Sunday in April –

daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typicall ...

is observed and clocks are advanced one hour. New Zealand Daylight Time (NZDT) is 13 hours ahead of UTC, and Chatham Daylight Time (CHADT) 13 hours 45 minutes ahead. New Zealand's associated states – the

Cook Islands ) , image_map = Cook Islands on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , capital = Avarua , coordinates = , largest_city = Avarua , official_languages = , lan ...

and

Niue Niue (, ; niu, Niuē) is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean, northeast of New Zealand. Niue's land area is about and its population, predominantly Polynesian, was about 1,600 in 2016. Niue is located in a triangle between Tong ...

– and the dependent territory of

Tokelau Tokelau (; ; known previously as the Union Islands, and, until 1976, known officially as the Tokelau Islands) is a dependent territory of New Zealand in the southern Pacific Ocean. It consists of three tropical coral atolls: Atafu, Nukunonu, a ...

use several different time zones at their own discretion.

History

On 2 November 1868, New Zealand officially adopted a standard time to be observed nationally, and was the first country to do so, about fifteen years before any other. Chatham Island was 45 minutes ahead of mainland New Zealand welve hours and fifteen minutes ahead of Coordinated Universal Time It was based on

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...

172° 30′ East of

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

, hours ahead of

Greenwich Mean Time Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a con ...

(GMT). This standard was known as New Zealand Mean Time (NZMT). In 1941, during the Second World War, clocks were advanced half an hour, to reduce electric power use making New Zealand 12 hours ahead of GMT. This change was made permanent from 1946 by the ''Standard Time Act 1945'', at which the time at the 180°E meridian was made the basis for New Zealand Time. NZST remained half an hour ahead of NZMT, and the

45 minutes ahead of NZST.

In the late 1940s the

atomic clock An atomic clock is a clock that measures time by monitoring the resonant frequency of atoms. It is based on atoms having different energy levels. Electron states in an atom are associated with different energy levels, and in transitions betwe ...

was developed and several laboratories began atomic time scales. A new time scale known as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) was adopted internationally in 1972. This was based on the readings of atomic clocks, updated periodically in accordance with time variations in the Earth's rotation by the addition or deletion of seconds (called

leap second A leap second is a one- second adjustment that is occasionally applied to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), to accommodate the difference between precise time (International Atomic Time (TAI), as measured by atomic clocks) and imprecise observ ...

s). The ''Time Act 1974'' defines New Zealand Standard Time as 12 hours in advance of UTC. In 2011, the New Zealand dependency of Tokelau moved its time zone forward by 24 hours, by skipping 30 December.

Daylight saving time (DST)

Starting in 1909, a member of Parliament, Sir Thomas Kay Sidey annually put forward a bill to advance the clocks an hour from September to the following March and the ''Summer Time Act 1927'' succeeded. In 1927, clocks were advanced by an hour from first Sunday in November to the first Sunday in March. This proved unpopular, so the ''Summer Time Act 1928'' revised this to a ''half''-hour shift from 14 October 1928 (second Sunday) to 17 March 1929 (third Sunday), then the ''Summer Time Act 1929'' permanently fixed this half-hour shift to run from the second Sunday in October to the third Sunday in March every year. In 1933, the period was extended from the first Sunday in September to the last Sunday in April. This continued until the Second World War, when emergency regulations in 1941 extended daylight saving to cover the whole year with annual re-applications until the ''Standard Time Act 1945'' made the abandonment of NZMT permanent in 1946, so that 180° becomes the base longitude and what was called NZ Summer Time (NZST) became NZ Standard Time. The ''Time Act 1974'' empowered the governor-general to declare by

Order in Council An Order-in-Council is a type of legislation in many countries, especially the Commonwealth realms. In the United Kingdom this legislation is formally made in the name of the monarch by and with the advice and consent of the Privy Council (''Kin ...

a period when daylight saving time is to be observed. This was a one-hour shift (on top of the earlier half-hour shift) from the first Sunday in November to the last Sunday in February, promptly changed the next year by The New Zealand Time Order 1975 which fixed the period of observance from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in March. In 1985 a comprehensive survey was undertaken by the Department of Internal Affairs. Public attitudes towards NZDT (New Zealand Daylight Time) and its effects on work, recreation and particular groups of people in society were surveyed. The survey indicated that 76.2% of the population wanted NZDT either continued or extended. Abaconda leigh farm

The survey also concluded that opinion on the topic differed little between sexes, and that support for NZDT was generally higher in urban centres. Daylight saving was famously opposed in the small Northland dairy farming community of Ararua, which refused to adjust its clocks for some years. Support for shortening or abolishing NZDT was always in the minority in the areas surveyed. As a consequence of the survey and further feedback from the public, in 1988 the Minister of Internal Affairs arranged for a trial period of extended NZDT to be held from the second Sunday in October 1989 to the third Sunday in March 1990. The Minister invited the public to write to him with their views on the five-week extension. The ''Daylight Time Order 1990'' declared that NZDT would run from 02:00 NZST on the first Sunday in October to 03:00 NZDT on the third Sunday in March. On 30 April 2007 the government announced that it had extended the daylight saving period from 24 to 27 weeks. From September 2007, daylight saving is now observed from the last Sunday in September until the first Sunday in April. From 30 April 2007, DST begins at 02:00 NZST on the last Sunday in September each year, and ends at 03:00 NZDT (or 02:00 NZST as defined in the 1974 Act) on the first Sunday in April. New Zealand time, including DST, is used by several Antarctic bases that are supplied from New Zealand. This results in the oddity that the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station sets its clocks an hour further ahead during the southern summer, when the sun is constantly above the horizon, than in the southern winter, when the sun is constantly below the horizon. The extreme geographic position of the base means that no possible adjustment of the daily activity cycle can have any effect on the amount of sunlight received during those activities. However, the arrangement presumably makes real time communications with New Zealand more practical, particularly in dealing with offices. The other countries in the

Realm of New Zealand The Realm of New Zealand consists of the entire area in which the monarch of New Zealand functions as head of state. The realm is not a federation; it is a collection of states and territories united under its monarch. New Zealand is an indep ...

–

Cook Islands ) , image_map = Cook Islands on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , capital = Avarua , coordinates = , largest_city = Avarua , official_languages = , lan ...

, and

– do not maintain DST. Two of them are on the other side of the International Date Line and have 22–24 hours time difference to New Zealand. The following table lists near future starting and ending dates of daylight saving time in the main islands of New Zealand:

Standards

New Zealand standard time is maintained by the Measurement Standards Laboratory (MSL), part of New Zealand Government. New Zealand standard time is based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC is kept within 200 nanoseconds of the international atomic time scale maintained by the

International Bureau of Weights and Measures The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (french: Bureau international des poids et mesures, BIPM) is an intergovernmental organisation, through which its 59 member-states act together on measurement standards in four areas: chemistry ...

in Paris. It is disseminated by various means, including time pips broadcast on Radio New Zealand,

speaking clock A speaking clock or talking clock is a live or recorded human voice service, usually accessed by telephone, that gives the correct time. The first telephone speaking clock service was introduced in France, in association with the Paris Observ ...

and Network Time Protocol.

Dependencies and associated states

There are two

associated states An associated state is the minor partner in a formal, free relationship between a political territory (some dependent, most fully sovereign states) and a major party—usually a larger nation. The details of such free association are contai ...

of New Zealand in the Pacific Ocean, both on the other side of the International Date Line: * The

Cook Islands ) , image_map = Cook Islands on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg , capital = Avarua , coordinates = , largest_city = Avarua , official_languages = , lan ...

are in the UTC−10:00 time zone or

Military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

W (Whiskey) and do not observe daylight saving time. Clocks in the Cook Islands are 22 or 23 hours behind New Zealand: at noon on Thursday in New Zealand, it is 13:00 or 14:00 on Wednesday in the Cook Islands. *

is in the UTC−11:00 time zone or Military X (X-ray) and does not observe daylight saving time. Clocks in Niue are 23 or 24 hours behind New Zealand: at noon on Thursday in New Zealand, it is noon or 1 pm on Wednesday in Niue. The New Zealand dependency of

is in the UTC+13:00 time zone or Military M' (Mike Prime) and does not observe daylight saving time. Clocks in Tokelau are set to the same time as or 1 hour ahead of New Zealand: at noon on Thursday in New Zealand, it is 12:00 or 13:00 on Thursday in Tokelau. The

Ross Dependency The Ross Dependency is a region of Antarctica defined by a circular sector, sector originating at the South Pole, passing along longitudes 160th meridian east, 160° east to 150th meridian west, 150° west, and terminating at latitude 60th para ...

, McMurdo Station and Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica maintain NZST/NZDT.

References

External links

Measurement Standards Laboratory
*
Daylight Saving page
from The Department of Internal Affairs.
''Timekeeping''
in Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand {{Oceania topic, Time in Standards of New Zealand