Our interstate Aussies must be delighted to read that daylight saving is not detrimental to mental health, so any lunatic behaviour from our continent of banana benders, sandgropers, crow eaters, top enders or cabbage patchers will need to be explained by other causes after all. (“Daylight saving ‘not detrimental to mental health”, DT, 28/9). While some argue that governments of the day were completely mad to introduce it, having multiple time zones across the nation perhaps validates this criticism retrospectively. Ben Bullock and Greg Murray have reviewed 157 studies across 36 countries, concluding that criteria diagnostic of mental health were not impacted by the artificial time change. One observation they might have made is that the initial distorted discussion about daylight savings highlighted how many of our fellow citizens were already quite mad. News of curtains fading, chooks not laying and cows confused actually became comic court cases. Daylight saving might not have sent us mad as a nation, but it was helpful in diagnosing the not-so-few non-cogent among us. Alan Sexton, North Parramatta 29 September 2026.
