WA people can complain with the best of them and the daylight saving debate certainly gets people fired up.

I have been listening with interest to talkback callers to 6PR, where Mornings presenter Simon Beaumont is behind the No vote and drive presenter Howard Sattler is backing the Yes vote.

Despite working with Simon once a week, I’m firmly on Howard’s side for this one.

I could run out of space listing the reasons. Here are some of them

More family time; more time to swim and play sport after school; the ability to do and hang out the washing at the end of the day; more time for barbecues with family and friends (this summer our book club met every Thursday for a month for cricket and dinner by the river with husbands and kids).

I reckon half the people who say their kids don’t go to sleep probably have trouble getting them to sleep any time of year. My tip – get sunblock blinds!

I do however agree that daylight saving to the end of March is pushing it a bit, getting up in the semi-dark to get ready for work and school is not ideal.

And although I have never noticed it before, this year my kids did seem to take a week to adjust to coming off daylight saving. They were getting up at 6am (what had been 7) but still going to bed at the same time. Even the dog was confused, barking for dinner at 4pm instead of 5pm and barking to get let in at 7pm instead of 8pm. But they were soon back to normal; not much different to the impact of long-haul travel to lands with daylight saving.

Having lived in Sydney briefly in my early 20s, daylight saving was great for being able to walk home after dark without fear. This summer I particularly enjoyed catching up with girlfriends for early evening movies and not having to worry about walking to the car in the dark.

Something that also seems to be getting confused in the No debate is people who have to get up early to deal with the east coast. The No voters say we should use technology like broadband and mobile phones and sit in home offices rather than driving to the office.

Hello, we still have to get up early no matter where the phone and computer are! My husband works in IT and often gets early morning support calls on his mobile. There’s a lot of difference between waking at 6 and 7am.

As a journalist I often have interviews that are scheduled to suit the east coast, UK or US and even getting the last slot on a schedule in summer may be 9am Sydney time – 7am here with daylight saving, 6am without.

Anyways here is the link to the Yes campaign.

And I’ll have to check on this but I am sure tonight’s news said around 15 people turned up to the No launch today. Just 15? Maybe YES has a chance after all!!  Don’t forget to vote for daylight not dark on May 16.