KEY POINTS:
The Government is not interested in extending daylight saving time, despite calls for it.
Internal Affairs Minister Rick Barker says there isn't a groundswell of support for any change to daylight saving, but that hasn't deterred Nelson City councillor Mark Holmes, who is trying to drum up support
for a three-week extension to daylight saving.
It took a 20-year parliamentary battle for New Zealand's sunshine hours to be officially extended in the first place. Almost 80 years after MP Sir Thomas Sidey's long campaign to introduce daylight saving ended in success, people are now calling for summer to go into extra time.
After a 1985 Department of Internal Affairs survey, daylight saving was extended in 1990 to its present form: from the first Sunday in October each year until the third Sunday in March of the following year.
The Auckland City Council was not aware of any call to swing its support behind a longer summer, and Local Government New Zealand said the issue had not been raised at a national level.
However, tourism operators keen to extend their trade beyond the summer peak season are all for more daylight saving. Tourism Industry Association chief executive Fiona Luhrs said extending daylight saving would give visitors more time to enjoy New Zealand's sights and activities and could help extend the peak season, increasing tourism's $17.2 billion contribution to the economy.
"Extending daylight saving might not attract more visitors to New Zealand at this time of year, but it would encourage those who come to do more," Ms Luhrs said.
NZ Tourism Online general manager Garry Bond said the company was at present polling its database on the issue, with 92 per cent of 318 respondents to date backing any move to extend daylight saving.
However, Federated Farmers president Charlie Pedersen said extending daylight saving, and hence the number of days farmers had to get up and start work in the dark, would be unlikely to find favour with rural folk.
Farming could be a dangerous job and daylight saving meant several perilous jobs had to be carried out in the dark, Mr Pedersen said.
A spokesman for Mr Barker said any change to daylight saving would mean a major shift in New Zealander's lifestyles and would need legislative change and extensive consultation.
While there was "a little bit of interest" in extending daylight saving, there were no official moves under way "at this point" to put such a change up for consideration.
Daylight saving
Most industrialised nations, with the exception of Japan, have introduced daylight saving.
In the European Union, daylight saving lasts around six months, from the last Sunday of March to the last Sunday of October. In North America, daylight saving time begins a week later, on the first Sunday of April, and ends on the last Sunday in October.
Some American and Australian states do not have daylight saving.
Across the Tasman, daylight saving runs from the last Sunday in October to the last Sunday in March in South Australia, Victoria, the ACT and New South Wales, and from the first Sunday in October to the last Sunday in March in Tasmania.