Steve Allen writes:
Australia has decided to redefine its legal time scale.
http://abc.net.au/science/news/space/SpaceRepublish_1307267.htm
The last line in the article implies other jurisdictions are doing the same. The exact text of the laws would be interesting in order to see whether they intend that UTC be matched to mean solar days or not.
A big question throughout all of the UTC discussions over the past five years is who "they" are and whether they have the ability to form a clear and consistent intent in the first place. Determining prior worldwide legal intent - and forming any (hopefully improved) future international legal consensus on civil time - should both be key to any proposed change to UTC. One has to wonder whether any individuals involved in the legal UTC debate in Australia were aware of the leap second controversy in the precision timing community. Whether this was the case or not, the wording of the quoted article makes it clear that UTC is being sold to everyday Australians in its original sense of being a continuing approximation to GMT:
"UTC is adjusted to remain consistent with GMT using "leap seconds" every 18 months."
Rob Seaman National Optical Astronomy Observatory
