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NO ONE’S looking forward to the end of daylight saving more than member for New England Barnaby Joyce.
Mr Joyce said on Thursday it had gone on for far too long and early- risers were forced to start their day in the dark.
“At 5am it’s pitchblack – they’re discriminating against people who like the mornings,” he laughed.
It was at the stage he needed a headlamp to ride his bike in the morning, he said.
“They need to get rid of it a lot earlier – when the Christmas holidays are over.”
His comments came on the same day it was revealed a report commissioned by the NSW government on daylight saving contained the radical proposal of moving the eastern states forward by half an hour.
Nationals MP for Tweed Geoff Provest said it was designed to solve the problems caused during daylight saving along the Queensland (with no daylight saving) and NSW border. Deputy premier Andrew Stoner asked the cross-border commissioner Steve Toms last year to review daylight saving and the impact of time zone anomalies, but when asked about the proposals in the report this week, he said the government had no plans to change the current provisions.
Quirindi resident David Maunder is another who believes the current daylight saving arrangements could be tweaked for the benefit of many. He wrote to The Leader, saying he’d like to see an extra hour added during the winter months.
“... so (you) can actually do something constructive outside at home in the small amount of daylight left after 5.30pm,” he said.
He reasons though, people in NSW have nothing to complain about compared to those in North Queensland “where it becomes daylight at 4.30am and dark by 5pm mid-summer with their ‘normal time’”.
Mr Maunder’s comments were in response to ones made by Gunnedah resident Judith Law, who wrote in on behalf of Citizens Against Daylight Saving.
Mrs Law has long believed it goes on for far too long – a month longer than originally intended – and should in fact be scrapped altogether.
“If you don’t want DLS extended into winter permanently, it’s time to tell members of NSW state parliament if they don’t hold a two- to four-year trial without DLS, then maybe it’s time for them to go,” she said.