Broken Hill in the context of Cold semi-arid climate

Australia uses three main time zones: Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST; UTC+10:00), Australian Central Standard Time (ACST; UTC+09:30) and Australian Western Standard Time (AWST; UTC+08:00).

Time is regulated by the individual state governments, some of which observe daylight saving time (DST). Daylight saving time (+1 hour) is used between the first Sunday in October and the first Sunday in April in jurisdictions in the south and south-east:

The state of New South Wales is divided into three divisions: the Eastern Division, the Central Division, and the Western Division. These were established for the purposes of the management of the lease of Crown land to private persons.The Western Division includes Broken Hill, Bourke, Cobar, Cockburn (NSW half), Walgett, Wentworth as well as the western land boards of Forbes, Griffith, Rankins Springs, West Wyalong, White Cliffs, Wyalong, Conargo, Hay and Parkes.

The Western Lands Act 1901 established a Western Lands Board, composed of three commissioners, to issue leases in the Western Division. The Progressive See government appointed Colin James McMasters as chairman on a salary of £1,500 per year and Robert McDonald and Hugh Langwell as commissioners on a salary of £1,000 per year. In 1931 the Lang government appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the administration of the Western Lands Division, including whether the then commissioners, Hugh Langwell, George Australia Denning and Arthur Willim Mullen were guilty of misbehaviour or incompetence. The commissioner, Ernest Arthur Prior, found that they had been negligent and incompetent, and they were dismissed on the advice of cabinet.

Sir Douglas Mawson OBE FRS FAA (5 May 1882 – 14 October 1958) was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer, and academic. He is known for being a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Sir Ernest Shackleton (with whom he undertook the Nimrod Expedition in 1907–1909). However most of his geological work was undertaken in South Australia, in particular the Precambrian rocks of the Flinders Ranges.

Mawson was born in England and was brought to Australia as an infant. He completed degrees in mining engineering and geology at the University of Sydney, after which he was appointed lecturer in petrology and mineralogy at the University of Adelaide in 1906. From 1903 onwards he undertook significant geological exploration, including an expedition to the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in 1903, and later in the Flinders Ranges and far north-east of South Australia and over the border near Broken Hill in New South Wales. He was interested in the commercial applications of geology, in particular the radioactive minerals being used in medical applications in the early 1900s. He identified and first described the mineral davidite in 1906, and later became an expert in the geochemistry of igneous and metamorphic rocks. Much of his later work was focused on the Precambrian rocks Adelaide Superbasin (which included the Flinders and Barrier Ranges), where there are significant fossil beds showing the beginnings of animal life on Earth.