A really long title, I know, but I had to highlight the fact, that I'm confronting a situation that's a little different than all the usual javascript date conversions.

I am getting the following datetime in a string from the server:

> 
> 2017-05-18T08:00:00
> 
> 
> 

When I put this string into the following statement: 

```
var newDate = new Date("2017-05-18T08:00:00");

```

It assumes it's in the UTC timezone, so it automatically adjusts, and converts it into local time, which in Sidney would become **2017/05/18 18:00:00**.

Any way that I can stop the date constructor to assume that the string is UTC time (make it assume that it's local time)?