The Government’s analysis of responses showed 42 per cent were in favour of keeping the current time zone while 41 per cent favoured a shift west.

But Weatherill strongly rejected suggestions today that his decision-making should follow the wishes of those who responded to the consultation process.

“My role is to lead, not to be a calculator,” he told ABC 891 breakfast radio. “If you want a calculator just buy one at a shop.”

He argued the consultation “wasn’t intended to be a quantitative survey where we counted people up.”

“It was really an exercise in fleshing out the arguments,” he said.

The arguments include a significant economic benefit to the state, estimated in a paper by the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies to be $2.5 billion.

However, Weatherill conceded this figure was fuzzy.

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The paper itself contains several caveats, including acknowledging that shifting to EST would make business coordination with Western Australia and South East Asia more difficult.

The majority of businesses surveyed in the study believed the current arrangements caused little or no inconvenience to their business.

The paper does set out – in comprehensive fashion – the exact costs and benefits of shifts to EST, ranging from health impacts and road crashes to impacts on trade and airline traffic.

Over on commercial radio, Weatherill focused on the vibe of the debate.

He argued that we needed to change perceptions of South Australia, and the time zone fed into negativity about the state.

“I’ve gotta tell you, people that have never been here bag the place unmercilessly and our reputation around this nation is very ordinary, and partly because we’ve never cared much about it,” he told FIVEaa’s breakfast program.

He said the attitude interstate was that “we don’t count or they don’t care”.

“What they do know about us is that we’re famous for bizarre murders and having this weird time zone and a few other strange curiosities. We need to actually get a national and international reputation is we’re going to trade ourselves out of the challenges that we have in our economy.”

As for concerns of people on the state’s west coast about the impact of switching to EST, Weatherill said these communities were already unhappy about the current situation.

“This gives them an opportunity – and that’s what I’ve asked Martin Hamilton-Smith to do – to talk about different arrangements for the west cost. Now, not necessarily suggesting a different time zone but there’s absolutely no reason why we have to have fixed starting times for our businesses, for our schools, for any of our government agencies.”