And, as the clocks go back an hour this Sunday, she is ever hopeful there will be an announcement that this will be the end of it once and for all.

The passing of time has done nothing to erode Mrs Law’s belief that daylight saving is just plain wrong.

She believes it means children are waiting in the dark for school buses and trying to get to sleep when it is still light, farmers are up too early and people’s bodyclocks are disrupted.

Mrs Law, who is originally from Boggabri, was elected president of the Gunnedah Anti-Daylight Saving Union (ADLSU) at its first meeting 20 years ago on March 30, 1996.

The group, together with its Tamworth counterpart, gathered 4000 signatures on a petition calling for an end to the extension to daylight saving in 1997.

The group protested on the steps of Tamworth Town Hall during State Cabinet to make their point to then Premier Bob Carr.

In 1999, Mrs Law took the protest to Gunnedah Shire Council, along with Ross and Vera Trott, who held an anti-daylight saving banner at Gunnedah Town Hall.

“The state government won’t take the slightest notice of the concerns of people west of the ranges, so I feel that, if we’re going to get anywhere, it has to be through local government,” Mrs Law said at the time.

“People will only have themselves to blame if the extension becomes a reality, if they don’t tell their local councils how they feel on this issue.”

Mrs Law, representing Citizens Against Daylight Saving (CADS), has continued to voice her concerns about the issue at a national level.

Mrs Law wrote to the Namoi Valley Independent last year saying the Liberal and Labor parties were “desperate to extend daylight savings for 12 months in NSW, Queensland and Victoria”.

She is convinced there is a move to introduce daylight saving year-round in NSW and across the world, citing France’s experiences with daylight saving at the hands of the European Union.

Mrs Law says the non-profit group could not have existed without its supporters.

“The National Party kept us running for all those years,” she says.

“They represented our interests in Parliament.”

She says the group’s belief in politicians has been sorely tested, but she still has hope, and will continue to push for at the very least, a shorter daylight saving timeframe.

“People have faith in you and you don’t want to let them down,” she says.

“I’m not a bored housewife. Twenty years of my life has gone into this.

“I feel as if I have let people down by not being articulate enough.”

Mrs Law says a number of events in 1993 were a “wake-up call” to her and she decided she needed to take a stand.

“I did things I never thought I would ever do in my lifetime,” she says.

“I wrote letters and held public meetings.

“I wasn’t lonely or bored, and I am so fond of all the people that I have met and sympathised with.

“You need people. There is no fighting anything when you’re alone.”

She says group members have been the object of ridicule from people who used the familiar jokes of fading curtains and confused cows.

Mrs Law continues to keep a keen eye on developments on the daylight saving front, including the involvement of the NSW Cross-Border Commission.

The Cross-Border Commissioner reviewed the issue for the NSW government a few years ago, but the review was not made public.

Former Gunnedah mayor and current Member for Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall and Member for Tamworth Kevin Anderson last year called for two months to be shaved off daylight saving.

“It’s easy for people to dismiss it as trivial, but for people that actually live through these things it is something that is certainly an inconvenience and I think we should look seriously at trying to alleviate those issues,” Mr Marshall said last year. 

What do you think? Should daylight saving stay the same, be shortened or be dropped altogether? Have your say on the Namoi Valley Independent’s Facebook page.

A NSW referendum held in May 1976 submitted a proposal that daylight saving be adopted on a permanent basis.

The ballot paper stated: 

“At present there is a period commonly called 'daylight saving' by which time is advanced by one hour for the period commencing on the last Sunday in October in each year and ending on the first Sunday in March in the following year.”

Electors were then asked to answer “yes” or “no” to the question: Are you in favour of daylight saving? 1,882,770 electors were in favour; 868,900 were against and 35,507 votes were informal.