Tweed MP Geoff Provest is backing a push by a National Party colleague to wind back daylight saving by a month saying the last month is ‘a pain and drags on too long’.
Nationals MLC Trevor Khan yesterday unveiled plans for a bill to be debated in coming weeks in state parliament to cut back on daylight saving time (DST) because he says it’s an unfair burden on people in the state’s west.
Daylight saving runs from the first Sunday of October to the first in April, but under the plan backed by the National MPs it would be wound back to end in March.
But the plan has been lambasted by the opposition in parliament and described as ‘a thought bubble gone too far’.
Mr Khan claimed that for people living on the western border of NSW ‘the sun gets up up to 50 minutes later in the day than in the eastern seaboard’ and that ending it earlier would mean they were ‘less likely to be getting up in the dark, kids are less likely to be riding the bus in darkness’.
He said it was a common complaint by country MPs who had ‘generally stopped arguing about daylight savings in general but that last month is grinding a lot of people down’.
Mr Khan’s plans were lambasted and met with shouts of derision from the opposition benches, according to a Fairfax Media report.
Shadow treasurer Ryan Park said ’this idea is a thought bubble gone too far… there’s been no thought about the impacts that changing daylight saving times would have on the state’s economy’.
Mr Provest issued a press release backing the move, saying he was ’hopeful’ daylight saving would end earlier if the bill was successful.
‘While the issue of daylight saving always provokes a passionate debate – some people love it and some want it gone completely – most people agree that the last month is a pain, it simply drags on for too long’, Mr Provest said.
He said the bill ‘essentially reverses the extension to daylight saving which was pushed through Parliament with little consultation in 2007’.
‘I’ve been working on this legislation with my Nationals colleagues from country NSW, particularly the new Parliamentary Secretary for Northern NSW, Adam Marshall, who has also been a passionate advocate for change,’ he said.
‘The majority of residents in Tweed don’t have a problem with daylight saving as such, but become frustrated with the confusion caused by the different time zone in Queensland for much of the year.
‘The consequences are not only social but are also economic, impacting on business, and disrupting family life in this cross-border community,’ Mr Provest said.
‘I think it’s a good comprise [sic]. We’ll still have five months of daylight saving but the final and most troublesome month will be removed.’
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