Denise Taveira has started a petition and a Facebook group to reduce the length of daylight saving from six months to four and the momentum is building.

Her stand comes hot on the heels of Northern Tablelands and Tamworth Nationals MPs Adam Marshall and Kevin Anderson declaring earlier this month they were up for the fight to turn the clocks back earlier – and forward later – and will take the issue to their parliamentary colleagues.

“Bundarra and Tingha are very much on board, but I have not had a lot of interest from Tamworth,” she said.

“We’ve also had interest from Gunnedah, Moree, Narrabri, Tenterfield, Guyra, Armidale and Inverell and have nearly 300 members on the Facebook page in a week.” 

The idea came from Mrs Taveira’s husband, who works at radio station 2NZ, speaking to a journalist about daylight saving and people saying how much they disliked it.

“The further out west you go, the more it impacts you,” she said.

“Bourke people were getting sunshine at 7am, but people are quite happy to tolerate it for four months. Six months is too long.

“Why can’t it go back to four months?

“It doesn’t really achieve anything when there are children catching the bus in the dark, because they have to catch more than one bus to get to school out west.” 

The daylight saving campaigner said there had been a lot of support in her region and hoped that member for Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall’s support would help her cause.

“It will depend on whether the government is willing to listen to country people,” she said.

Mrs Taveira said people could find out where to sign the petitions via the Facebook group “NSW: Let’s Unite to Reduce Daylight Savings”.