This story on Stuff has given me an idea.

Russia’s president thought the country had too much time on its hands, so on Sunday he eliminated two of its 11 time zones.

The changes mean that Chukotka – Russia’s eastern extreme, just across the Bering Strait from Alaska – is now nine hours ahead of Russia’s westernmost area, the Kaliningrad exclave sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. Formerly, there was 10 hours’ difference.

As well as eliminating the time zone that previously covered the Chukotka and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky regions in the Pacific Far East, President Dmitry Medvedev ordered that Samara and Udmurtia, two regions in central Russia, should be on the same time as Moscow.

My message to anyone thinking about challenging Dmitry Medvedev is simple: you clearly should not mess with this man. He can change time.

Anyway, here’s my big idea. John Key wants us to close the gap with Australia. But our per capita income continues to trend downwards when compared with Australia.

But one thing we can close is the time gap. Let’s abolish our time zone and switch to Australia’s Eastern  Standard Time.

And that way the good PM can say he kept his promise to move us closer to Australia.

Just remember when Key is lauded to the heavens that it was my idea first.