A “long shot” in the NSW Parliament may not receive short shrift from NSW residents fed up with six months of daylight saving.
State Member for Tweed Geoff Provest looks set to introduce a private member’s bill to the lower house in about two weeks.
It is expected to call for daylight saving to end on the first Sunday in March, instead of the first Sunday in April.
Mr Provest is advocating that his NSW Liberal Party colleagues get a “free vote” on the bill.
“If they do, I think it will be successful,” he said.
Mr Provest said the bill was not seeking debate on daylight saving “per se”.
He said the practice remained “very divisive” with NSW residents and politicians either for or against it.
But many were finding common ground on the issue of duration, Mr Provest reported.
“The majority of Liberals and even Labor people I’ve spoken to have come to the same conclusion,” he said.
“Whether they are for or against it, at the end of the day they agree that it goes on too long.”
Mr Provest said in 2007 the Liberal and Labor parties “pushed through” the extension of daylight saving to six months, with the Nationals voting against it.
He said the move put NSW “in sync” with Victoria and Tasmania.
“If we reduce it by four weeks we will create some level of pain or confusion for our people living in Albury-Wodonga.. and places like that,” Mr Provest said.
He confirmed signatures supporting the wind back were headed towards the 10,000 mark, which “triggered an automatic debate in the parliament”.
“The only thing with petition debates is there’s not a vote taken,” said the politician with “Queensland on the other side of the street”.
With a private member’s bill, “there’s got to be debate, got to be a vote", he said.
Mr Provest suggested that the bill would be debated during parliamentary sittings in May or June.
He admitted that the bill was a “long shot” if the Liberals didn’t obtain a free vote.
“But kids are getting up in the dark and coming home in the dark,” Mr Provest said.
This story first appeared in the Daily Liberal.
