Date and time notation in Australia


Date and time notation in Australia most commonly records the date using the day-month-year format, while the ISO 8601 format is increasingly used for all-numeric dates. The time can be written using either the 12-hour clock or the 24-hour clock.

Date

Australians typically write the date with the day leading, as in the United Kingdom and New Zealand:
The ISO 8601 date format is the recommended short date format for government publications. The first two digits of the year are often omitted in everyday use and on forms.
Weeks are most identified by the last day of the week, either the Friday in business or the Sunday in other use. Week ending is often abbreviated to "W/E" or "W.E." The first day of the week or the day of an event are sometimes referred to. Week numbers are not often used, but may appear in some business diaries in numeral-only form. ISO 8601 week notation is not widely understood. Some more traditional calendars instead treat Sunday as the first day of the week.

Time

The Australian government allows writing the time using either the 24-hour clock, which is commonplace in technical fields such as military, aviation, computing, navigation, and the sciences; or the 12-hour clock. The before noon/after noon qualifier is usually written as "am" or "pm". A colon is the preferred time separator.