What is it about Nambour? There was a time when it was famous for having a sugar cane train running through the centre of town.

While those born and bred in the shadow of the mill stack claim it as the centre of the universe, others would say the only good thing to come out of it was the Bruce Highway.

So what’s changed? Suddenly everyone is queuing up to claim they went to Nambour High School.

The same thing can be said of Queensland. There was a time when it was considered another country.

I remember an Australian movie – Fatty Finn or some such title. It was when kids rode around in carts pulled by goats … billy carts. There was a scene in which Bert Newton was telling his son not to let the family down or they would be struck off the Sydney social list and “have to move to Queensland”.

Even in the ’70s and ’80s visitors were reminded to put their watches back 20 years when they crossed the border.

Yet all of that has changed. Our sporting teams have put paid to that. And we have an economy that is booming – one in three new jobs in Australia are being created in the Sunshine State.

We are ahead of the nation. Just look at the map of Australia and you will see what I mean. The sun rises earlier in Queensland. I’m not making this up. The earth is not flat.

We are almost as close to Auckland as to Adelaide. The sun comes up in Goondiwindi earlier than it does in Canberra. It comes up in Windorah about the same time as Melbourne.

I can remember visiting relatives in Antarctica With Trams. We were up and about 6am, having breakfast, reading the newspaper … walking around an empty house. Everyone else was still in bed. They get up and go to bed an hour later.

I was once flown to Sydney to interview Andrew Denton after his chat show on Channel 7. He asked if putting his program back from 9.30 to 10.30pm would make it a proper late night chat show and get a bigger audience in Queensland. My reply was that if you put it back to 10.30 you would get no-one. We would all be asleep.

I have lived and worked in Melbourne and London and experienced daylight saving.

I can remember reading a book in the back garden at Wembley at 10pm. It worked there and to some extent it worked here in Queensland when we tried it. But I don’t want the best time of the day to become rush hour.

Now I may not be the brightest crayon in the pack but what about this for an idea. Instead of Queensland trying to keep in step with the rest of Australia why don’t we put ourselves up where we belong. Ahead of the rest.

That’s right. Set our clocks forward an hour … permanently. All year round. That way it will always be summer time in the Sunshine State.