ADVOCATES of daylight saving in southeast Queensland say the issue will not disappear, despite a bill for a referendum on a dual time zone in the state being stonewalled in Parliament late last night.
More than one year after independent MP Peter Wellington tabled the bill calling for a referendum on daylight saving for southeast Queensland only, MPs took less than one hour to dismiss the issue in Parliament.
The bill was briefly raised in a week dominated by debates over the State Budget, but generated little discussion in the house, with southeast Queensland members from both major parties remaining silent.
Independent MPs, including Liz Cunningham, Aidan McLindon and Dorothy Pratt, spoke in favour of the bill alongside Mr Wellington, but they lacked adequate support from the major parties for there to be a vote on the floor.
Mr Wellington said the major parties refused to allow there to be an all-party parliamentary committee to discuss the issue ahead of a referendum.
"The government and the opposition refused to have a bar of it," he said.
A poll on daylight saving last year divided the state along city and regional lines, with two-thirds of people from outside southeast Queensland opposing a referendum.
Southeast Queenslanders overwhelmingly supported daylight saving, with 67 per cent of respondents favouring a referendum and 70 per cent backing a split timezone trial period in the in the online poll conducted by the state government.
At the time Premier Anna Bligh said she must govern in the interests of all Queenslanders and would not support a split timezone for the state.
Both Labor and the LNP oppose daylight saving.
Jason Furze, leader of the Daylight Saving for South-East Queensland Party said he was disappointed that MPs had allowed party politics to override democracy.
"Not all the independents who voted in the favour of the bill were in favour of daylight saving, but all of them were in favour of putting it out to the people at the polls by a referendum," Mr Furze said.
"Right from the start we, as DS4SEQ, have been calling for both major parties to have a conscience vote allowing each elected member to truly represent their constituents.
"The Gold Coast members were notably absent and silent during this debate ... their silence was deafening."
Mr Furze said the failure of the bill was not the end of his party or his cause.
"The issue of daylight saving will always be a problem until it is adequately resolved. If the solution could be a dual time zone, let's at least give it a go before we dismiss it," he said.
"The issue is still simmering and it's going to and we're going to continue to drive that."
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