"If you're on the western border of NSW the sun gets up up to 50 minutes later in the day than in the eastern seaboard," said Nationals MLC Trevor Khan unveiling plans for a bill to be debated in coming weeks. 

"Ending it earlier would mean people [in the west] are less likely to be getting up in the dark; kids are less likely to be riding the bus in darkness".

Daylight saving time runs from the first Sunday of October to the first in April. But under Mr Khan's plan it would be wound back by one month to end in March.

"It's a frequent complaint heard by country MPs," Mr Khan said. "They've generally stopped arguing about daylight savings in general but that last month is grinding a lot of people down".

But Mr Khan's plans were met with shouts of derision from the opposition benches and references to some of the old, famous and perhaps apocryphal arguments against daylight savings mounted in Queensland and Western Australia: that cows would be woken up an hour earlier, or that curtains would be caused to fade more quickly.

"This idea is a thought bubble gone too far," Shadow Treasurer Ryan Park said. "There's been no thought about the impacts that changing daylight saving times would have on the state's economy."

Mr Khan was non-committal about the chances of his private member's bill in a forthcoming debate but is not counting on support from opposition MPs.

Western Australia has gone to the poll several times on bringing in daylight saving time. Voters have rejected the proposal each time,most recently in 2009.

The state's daylight saving schedule has been altered before. It was brought into effect in late August for the Sydney Olympics.

Australia's daylight savings time was also altered for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

One study by the US federal government found that daylight savings  correlated with a slight, less than one per cent, drop in traffic accidents.

In 2005, then Queensland Premier said differences in interstate television schedules caused by Daylight Savings had cruelled the chance of local Australian Idol contestant Dan England.

Notice of Mr Khan's bill has been given to the Legislative Council but it is not yet known when it will be debated.