I write to you with more hope of any issue of concern, that should be and must be addressed. The lack of understanding and compassion for people suffering and being ignored by members of parliament. Who were voted in by the people to do the will of the people. I feel an urgent need due to age in 2026.
Firstly, I need to name the following:
1.Daylight Saving, as a high priority on behalf of Citizens against Daylight Saving, DLS.
2. In 1994, I wrote my concerns about DLS to the Northern Daily Leader paper, Tamworth. I received an instant response from the original committee who protested the 1972-1976 referendum, Tamworth Anti-DLS Union. In March 1996 at a meeting in Gunnedah, Town Hall Theatre, with all sections of community represented, a teacher told of tired children, which became a learning problem, and a need to provide breakfast for children long distance, on the bus to local schools. The town Gunnedah bus to Tamworth school, 7am during DLS time 6am, older students cared for children in primary schools, who slept on their laps. One child was left on the bus at the depot, and wasn’t found until 2.45pm, I personally travelled on this bus in this time frame.
3. Meeting of concern for evening meals served in nursing home hospitals S.T 5-6pm, DLS 4pm to 5pm. Due to overtime if later, visiting hours over 7pm, long night. During school holidays, I record my five-year-old grandson saying to his mother at 6pm DLS, “Mum, why do I have to go to bed, when you are still doing the washing and the sun is still high in the sky?”. Also, the memory of getting children to go to bed before 9pm.
4. Evidence from news, TV, and radio during the 1990s. Input from farmers’ wives became a main focus, who told of problems of meal times being later, evening news over before husbands finished their work day, and not repeated later on TV or radio. Animals also have body clocks, after droughts etc had to be moved onto roads to have green grass, cows didn’t want to be herded on then during DLS time. It was much worse for dairy farmers who had to have milk containers on the road to be trucked by truck drivers. Cows didn’t or couldn’t release milk hours earlier. There came mocking comments by pro DLS supporters, about chickens and cows which continues every time DLS comes twice a year.
We are now living in a 24-hour cycle, mental health and physical health has declined, much worse is the problem of youth crime, relating to body clocks being out of order. A trial of no DLS for four years needs to be made on medical evidence, which has been ignored for way too long. Prevention of problems needs to be urgently addressed, especially for our farmers, who could not get one month off DLS with 10,000 signatures in 1917-1918 as it failed to be tallied in the NSW Parliament.
Gunnedah has always been a farming community. If our farmers were doing well, our town, meaning our shops etc, also did well in the good season. I recall part of a poem- “The meat and the wheat and the food that we eat, all come from the man on the land’ Through drought, flood and fires, they continue to supply our daily bread. I had a poster which stated “No Farmers, No food” and once again they are now wanting a month off.
The former leader of the National Party, Andrew Stoner, issued a press release, stating that he would fly the DLS flag up the pole to find support for Daylight Saving. At the same time a border commission was appointed to send out a survey in NSW, Queensland, EU, European Union.
Our protest CADS has been ongoing for 30 years and for farmers in NSW it has been going for longer. Members of parliament have been constantly lobbied by all, also with compassion for people they take an oath to represent that the anti-discrimination act only covers a small percentage of the population and could not act on our behalf. Our local members of parliament have been the voice of our farmers, the foundation and the starting point of this town that we all call home.
We started with a $2 joining fee in Gunnedah at an Anti Daylight Saving Meeting on March 30, 1996, at the Gunnedah Theatrette, supported by the community. As the protest took off, Australia Post didn’t like the $2 coin to come through the mail and we became a non-profit organisation. Our policies were formed and we stayed true to what was voted in. We thank our members from border to border and beyond.
We continue to send submissions in folders after the printed media technology came into place and all our printed submissions went to the attorney general of the day and more than one Attorney General replied and stated “If you wish to correspond further on this same subject, your concerns will of course be noted and recorded, I regret it will not be possible for the Attorney General of the Department of Justice to provide you with any further response.” But we still sent information by the electronic media on behalf of our request.
Judith Law
Gunnedah
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