Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is right. There are 39.37 inches in a metre, in fact. The reality of establishing a standard that was based on a notion of 10 meant that you could divide the standard of a metre. I will use the linear measurement to start with, although measurements of volume and mass come into it too. The metre’s divisibility by 10 was a very important part of what the establishment of that measure was about.

I relate to my earlier statements about industry the development of the printing industry. Certainly Gutenberg did not have a lot to do with the notion of a standard paper size. He essentially cobbled together whatever he could in terms of rags and other things to print on. But with the industrial revolution and the Americas moving ahead—particularly what became the US—there was the creation of the printing industry as we understand it today. The standard of paper was something that people worked very closely on. All of us who read newspapers in the days when we travelled by train would remember having large newspapers that we would have to fold and twist. The development of the metric system allowed the introduction of the tabloid paper. The tabloid is essentially an A3 sheet of paper. Even though there are variations of that now that are called tabloids, usually a tabloid is something smaller than the old, large newspapers.

The difficulty for industry in this country before we established the metric system was the inconsistency between the US and us. We had always had that inconsistency, even when we had the imperial system in this country. We had the pint and the gallon, but the US gallon happened to be a lesser amount than the Australian gallon. Those inconsistencies have, to some degree, moved on because of our adoption of the metric system and because other countries, when making international trading arrangements, talk in terms of metrics.

But in the printing industry and the metal industry, when measurements were still in the old imperial system—feet and inches—square measures were certainly worked out in that way. I will use the example of the printing industry because it comes down to the notion of a sheet of paper. I talked about the golden rectangle and why we have rectangular sheets of paper—because they are in the shape of the perfect rectangle. People may understand that the notion of A3 and A4 sheets of paper—I have an A4 sheet here in front of me—is based on the standard of a square metre. You start with the calculation of an A0. An A0 sheet is one square metre of paper, but in the golden rectangle ratio of one to one to two. It is from cutting up that A0 sheet of paper that we get the other sizes of paper. The most common size of paper used is A4. Essentially that is an A0 sheet of paper halved to make A1, A2, A3 and then A4. It goes on to A5, A6, A7, A8 and A9, which is the size of a business card. They are all related to each other. Those sizes also had some bearing on the way that paper could be folded.

Coming back to these measurements you can see the need for standards. We have established quite well in our country our understanding and use of the metric system. This legislation will ensure that, right across the board—right across the federation of our states—we will have consistency.

Many members in this House would have lots to do with printers and people providing printed material. It is always interesting to look at the calculation of folding. Again, it comes down to a standard. If you take a piece of paper—it does not matter what size it is—you can fold it in half only seven times. You cannot fold a sheet of paper more than seven times. People might want to challenge that but the reality is that you cannot physically fold—

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