Keep the Sleep: a Request to End Daylight Saving Time in NSW
Petitioner:
Dr Susannah Lee
| Member:
Lee, Geoff
| No. of Signatories:
120
| Date closed:
12/01/2022
To the Speaker and Members of the Legislative Assembly,
We respectfully request that NSW Parliament end daylight saving time in NSW and return the state to Australian Eastern Standard Time permanently. This will make life easier, happier, safer and healthier for the residents of NSW.
The change to daylight saving time each year causes difficulties for:
- businesses which operate across state boundaries,
- parents and carers of children who have to manage disruption to children’s sleep,
- HSC students who lose an hour of sleep just before the most important academic examinations of their lives, and
- farmers, who have to manage a disjunction between the circadian rhythm of livestock and the timing of logistics.
Above all, daylight saving time is bad for our health. The time change in spring is followed by an increase in risk of heart attack and traffic accidents, more numerous and more severe workplace injuries, and higher suicide rates. The health effects are so detrimental that the European Parliament has ceased to recommend the practice, while the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Australian experts agree that the abolition of daylight saving time would be a win for public health
