Federal Member for Nicholls Sam Birrell and Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education and Youth Angie Bell are keen to put a focus on the childcare divide between urban and regional settings.
“Equitable access to childcare is really a challenge for a lot of young parents,” Mr Birrell said.
Particularly in the south of his electorate, Mr Birrell said there were so-called ‘childcare deserts’.
A ‘childcare desert’ is an area where there are more than three children vying for every childcare spot available.
Despite increases in childcare availability across Australia between 2020 and 2024, a Victoria University study shows access is still impacted by where people live, and how regional or rural their location is.
Particularly surrounding Benalla, the research shows a significant lack of childcare.
Ms Bell said despite billions in government spending on childcare subsidies and educator wage increases, the spending was not translating to more available care in regional areas.
“Those in regional Australia are missing out,” she said.
“For some families it is dire. We’re in a cost-of-living crisis and they need to go back to work to pay their bills, and they can’t access a place in any of the services in their area.”
Ms Bell said family daycare used to fill the gap for some families, but those operations had diminished in recent years.
While Mr Birrell said childcare subsidies and wage increases for educators were important, he said they couldn’t make a difference unless there were childcare centres for parents to access.
He wants a focus on ensuring all communities have access to care.
And one of the obstacles flagged that communities across Victoria, and the nation, are facing is the ability to hire enough staff.
Ms Bell said nationwide there was a shortage of roughly 20,000 educators, and it is important to build the pipeline to ensure communities can fully staff the centres that exist.
“The solution isn’t always another centre, another service popping up and the money for the infrastructure for that because if you can’t fully staff a service, then you can’t run at capacity, and therefore it’s not sustainable and so the problem really does come back to workforce,” Ms Bell said.
Ms Bell said she wanted to let parents know the Coalition was listening and working to put together policies that would deliver more choices and flexibility for regional families.
Ms Bell declined to share policy details.
She said policies would be announced closer to the next federal election.
Ronni Druitt knows first-hand how difficult it is for some regional communities to access care for young children.
Ms Druitt is the chief executive of the Goulburn Region Preschool Association.
She said her organisation recently received funding for several of their early education operations through the Department of Education’s Community Child Care Fund.
However, she said bids for funding for two childcare centres in Merrigum and Barmah, which were previously funded, were unsuccessful in the most recent round.
As a result, she said the Merrigum location closed.
Ms Druitt said families in that area could at least go to neighbouring areas such as Kyabram for care.
But the organisation is working hard to keep the Barmah location running as it is the only option for families in that area, she said.
“If that folds, we’re in a real problem area. That money was used for operating costs, to reduce fees, and to employ an additional educator,” she said.
Ms Druitt recognised that funding was not the only issue facing providers in the region.
She said the lack of staffing was a continuing problem, and one she’s not sure how to solve.
For regional areas, the many stressors on the system mean parents are sometimes left with few options.
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