DAYLIGHT ROBBERY?

Many countries are now deciding to ditch the twice-yearly ritual of changing their clocks in spring and autumn. So is it time New Zealand looked at it, too?

- GREG DIXON

Great news: you're about to get some stolen property back. At the weekend, that precious hour the government pinched from you in spring will finally be returned as the nation's clocks move from daylight saving back to standard time - a ritual that, for the past 15 years, has happened at 3am on the first Sunday of every April.

The bad news, of course, is the government is a hopeless recidivist; it will be back in September to steal the hour from you all over again.

The April shift back is undoubtedly the easier bit of New Zealand's biannual transition in and out of daylight saving time (DST). Getting the hour back will mean, if only for that first Sunday, an extra hour in bed for lazy buggers. It also means much of the country will again enjoy waking up to sunlight, at least until the dead hand of winter is upon us and our days shorten.

So changing the clocks back to standard time in April is simply a chore. It is the theft of the hour in September that is the stone in the nation's shoe.

While the move into DST holds the promise of longer summer evenings the universal utility of which is open to debate - the change also disrupts our body clocks, which in turn begets a sort of poor-man's jet lag, bad moods, whiny children and, according to some research, a temporary increase in traffic accidents, strokes and heart attacks.

The negative effects aren't necessarily short-lived. Some folks take up to a fortnight to adjust, according Dr Karyn O'Keeffe, of Massey University's Sleep/ Wake Research Centre. "So while we could argue that it's only an hour, missing out on that hour of sleep is quite substantial from a safety and health point of view," she says.

So here's the question: is the game worth the candle? Is the illusion - remember, no more sunlight is actually generated by changing clocks - of extended summer days really worth the disruption and the health risk?