Perspective People Please - Get A Little

I live in WA and today we had a referendum on whether or not we wanted Daylight Saving. It is the 4th time it has gone to a vote and again it was defeated. If you had asked me what I thought when my children were younger I would have voted No, and that is what I did then. Now, I don't have an opinion one way or another. In some ways it is an inconvenience as we tend to forget to eat until later which is not good for the digestion but really I don't care. My husband doesn't like it because it means he gets up in the dark to go to work for most of the year, but he didn't really care one way or the other. So we are walking up to vote and I said to him, I have no idea which way I am going to vote because I don't really care one way or the other and he felt the same. I didn't ask him which way he voted and he didn't ask me either - that's how little it meant to us.

What I do care about is that having another referendum on the same issue is a waste of money, money that could be used elsewhere - how about our hospital system, or shelters for the growing number of homeless people, or maybe our schools - you get my drift? This referendum cost our State a lot of money to run. Over 10 million dollars - that is obscene to me when I have a friend that I see in pain because she has to wait for a hip replacement in the public health system.

I elect a government to make the tough decisions, if business is pushing for us to get in line with the Eastern States because it is easier for them, then fine, pass the law. But for some reason they want to know what I think - why? If you want to know what I think ask me about something significant like same sex marriages, or the way politicians swan around the world with their wives on my tax payer money, or how we can improve our hospital system or where I would like my tax dollars to go - don't ask me about daylight saving, it is just not that important to me.

And to be honest I was sick of the Nos and much as the Yes campaigners, there are children dying in this world how dare you spend money on and be in my face about where the hands on the clock point.

To top it off I find people on FaceBook getting emotive about the outcome - for goodness sake explain to me how this is that important. How can an hour's difference on the clock make you that emotional. It doesn't give you an extra hour in the day, there are still only 24, only the clock changes. Get some perspective in your lives please. If you are going to be that passionate about this, how about using some of that passion for the important things in this world - like how many homeless people we have on our streets, or the number of people that will be unemployed soon, or the fact that children are dying in the world because they don't have enough food on their table. Can you honestly tell me that every single day of the 3 year DSL trial you did something you could only do with DSL in your life.

When did we become this indulgent society that expends so much of our passion on something that effects our leisure time. I just can't believe that an issue as petty as this can divide a State. If DSL has any relevance to our lives it should be that we have less time to do business with the other side of our vast country - not whether you can go to the beach after work.

But then this is my opinion and you are welcome to yours.