Pplater crafts a humorous, satirical piece about Australia's supposed conversion to decimal time, drawing parallels to political deflection tactics. This post, originally shared on April Fool's Day, cleverly weaves horological concepts into a fictional political narrative, prompting lively community discussion.
Australia’s Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, has confirmed that Australia will convert to the use of a Decimal Time standard.
As most people will know, Julia Gillard is Australia’s first female prime minister. She rose to the job by displacing the incumbent Prime Minister Kevin Rudd as the leader of the Australian Labor Party, thereby avoiding the inconvenience of an election for office. On 21 August 2010 she faced the Australian public in a federal election, the result of which was the first hung parliament since 1940. She retained her position only by forming a minority government with the support of Independent MPs.
Since 2010 Prime Minister Gillard has faced down two spill motions in the party room, the latest of which occurred on 21 March 2013. Again, Gillard survived, but her party and her ministry have been decimated by the fallout and it will be a monumental achievement for her to retain power at the next federal election in September.
A former Labor Prime Minister and scion of the Labor Party, Paul Keating, was a master at dealing with bad electoral news or unfavourable odds. Keating (the self-proclaimed ‘Placido Domingo of Australian politics’) famously won ‘the unwinnable election’ of 1993, giving us the memorable victory speech beginning “This is the sweetest victory of all”.
Keating’s tactic for dealing with bad electoral news was to deflect the attentions of a gullible electorate with a ruse. Faced with terrible balance of trade figures, he would declare a competition for a new flag; faced with the defection of ministers or a strengthening opposition, he would call for a new national anthem. The public would flood the radio waves and newspapers with cries of objection or entries for the competition; bad news would be swamped; Keating would be returned at the election.
Taking a leaf, it seems, from the Keating songbook, Julia Gillard has invoked 50 year-old legislation to impose decimal timekeeping on the Australian people.
As a former British colony, Australia was naturally weaned on the Imperial system of weights and measurements. That included twelve pence in the shilling, 240 pence in the pound; twelve inches in the foot; sixty seconds in the hour, 24 hours in the day.
In a move towards international conformity, Australia adopted decimal weights and measures, and famously converted its currency from pounds, shillings and pence to decimal currency – dollars and cents – on 14 February 1966. The enabling act of Parliament was The Currency Act 1963 (No. 67 of 1963):
Until now, the only units of measurement to escape decimalisation were units of time – seconds, minutes and hours. That is now all set to change.
Invoking the National Measurement Act (No. 64) of 1960 and the Weights and Measures (National Standards) Act (N0. 31) of that same year, Julia Gillard has decreed that Australia will convert to decimal time with effect from 1 January 2014. Naturally, that has sparked a wave of protest but also, surprisingly, a groundswell of support. It seems that the population, not having learned the lesson of the Keating years, has fallen for the political three-shell trick once again.
As watch enthusiasts, our greatest concern has to be the overnight redundancy of our treasured timepieces. The Gillard government is unapologetic, pointing to the fact that apps have already been introduced for Android and iThingy users to handle the conversion of time. This, they say, will be ample support for the greatest majority of the population who rely on their personal devices for timekeeping.
Schools and State agencies are being provided with conversion tables for display in prominent places and it is anticipated that the younger generation will adapt to the new system very quickly.
Already, decimal clocks are being erected in public places such as railway stations and airports alongside the conventional clocks, and the conventional clocks will be phased out in the first few months of the new year.
There is no talk, yet, of a replacement or ‘buy-back’ program being offered to high-end watch owners, such as the government offered to gun owners when introducing gun-control legislation following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. The government is expected to argue that it will not be illegal to use ‘conventional’ watches; that they will still function fit for purpose and that simple converters will render them effective for telling decimal time. Controversially, however, the government is understood nonetheless to have placed substantial orders for mil-spec versions of watches such as the Nienaber DezimalZeit and others like it:
It is possible that this will not come to pass: if the September election result goes against Labor, then perhaps the Liberal government will rescind the enabling legislation. Watch enthusiasts can only hope that will be so. If not, what next – the 10 month year???
Cheers,
pplater.
