There's a simple approach (tested with xelatex and pdflatex)...
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{filecontents}
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{a,
title = {TitleA},
date = {2016-01-02}
}
@book{b,
title = {TitleB},
date = {2016-01-02/2016-02-05}
}
@book{c,
title = {TitleC},
date = {2016-01-01/2016-01-05}
}
\end{filecontents}
\usepackage[australian]{babel}
% Polyglossia variants don't quite work with biblatex at the moment
%\usepackage{polyglossia}
%\setdefaultlanguage[variant=british]{english}
\usepackage[%
%
% Basics
%
style=authoryear,
alldates=long,
dateabbrev=false,
%alldates=ymd, % ISO like, but customizable format (Recommended)
%
% Unecessary to set
%
% [default] autobib=try to get main document
% language from babel/polyglossia
%language=autobib,
%autolang=langname, % Don't worry about this.
%
% Other (new) settings you might like to play with
%
% alldatesusetime=true,
% alltimes=24h,
% seconds=true,
% timezones=true,
% datezeros=true,
% dateera=secular,
% datecirca=true,
% dateuncertain=true,
]{biblatex}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\begin{document}
Current language: \currentlang\\
\autocite{a}\\
\autocite{b}\\
\autocite{c}\\
\printbibliography
\end{document}
That yields, in the bibliography/references section:
TitleA (2 January 2016).
TitleB (2 January 2016-5 February 2016).
TitleC (1 January 2016-5 January 2016).
In summary you:
- Set
australian as your babel variant \usepackage[australian]{babel}
- Use the biblatex option
alldates=long
- Set other options as desired (you've chosen
dateabbrev=false).
This gives you "1 January 2016-5 January 2016" rather than "1–5 January 2016". But I'd suggest the former is better given that a date range like "31 December 2016-5 January 2016" will have no compressed and readable equivalent of the sort you've specified.
This also appears to give you what you want in terms of what you expressed responding to @Ross.
Biblatex support for Polyglossia is currently a problem (specifically for polyglossia language variant setting). The solution is to use babel, not polyglossia, for the moment. For details see http://tex.stackexchange.com > How do we get Polyglossia language variants to work with Biblatex bibliographies?.
However, I'd commend to you alldates=ymd which gives you an ISO like format (but with customization options that ISO doesn't permit). In the internet age it's right to make your dates globally friendly. In that case, when using alldates=ymd, the command \usepackage[australian]{babel} becomes irrelevant and could be removed (for biblatex purposes). That'll produce:
TitleA (2016-01-02).
TitleB (2016-01-02/2016-02-05).
TitleC (2016-01-01/2016-01-05).
A warning that Biblatex has recently introduced a raft of datetime features to support EDTF for inputting dates (e.g. 2016-07-22T22:12+10:00; 2016?; 1875~; -0379~). Although the released biblatex is fairly robust this is still undergoing testing (I'd at least ensure your latex packages are up to date).
