Alanna Wardle has been waiting for six months to access child care in her regional town, and the Australia Talks National Survey has found she is far from alone in the search for affordable care.
But with local residents struggling to access and afford child care, new parents settling in country towns are already at a disadvantage. The United Workers Union's early education director, Helen Gibbons, is concerned about early education in remote areas.
"Rural and regional communities need early education, they're an essential part of the community in the same way that schools are," Ms Gibbons said. "It's really important to those areas, the economy and to families that they continue to exist and that they're healthy and well-staffed with people who are qualified and experienced in their roles."Tamara Garrett's day care service caters to shift workers in Mount Isa and can't keep up with demand. Tamara Garrett has an early start at her family day care, opening the doors about 5:30am to cater for shift workers in the Queensland mining town of Mount Isa. Ms Garrett started a waiting list to manage the high demand for her services, but it became so long she had to cancel it."It's a very family-orientated town, there are lots of families, so it equals lots of children and there's just not enough spaces for children in child care.Childcare workers need entry-level qualifications and at least one staff member needs a degree in early education.an extra 39,000 staff by 2023Tamara Garrett says parents put their names down for places in child care before their babies are born. Ms Gibbons said there were significant shortages all across the county for early educators, but was is "particularly stark in rural and remote areas". "Frankly the pay is appalling for early education and they have really responsible jobs that contribute to our community," she said."Why would you stay in early education when you can earn 30 per cent more working in a school?" Tasmanian child care provider Lady Gowrie has centres across the state and is an education provider for childcare workers. Its chief executive officer Ros Cornish said the question of who would pay for childcare staff to receive a higher wage had been the "elephant in the room for so long"."We know that if we pay educators what I truly believe they deserve, who pays? Parents do in fees," Ms Cornish said. "I think everybody struggles with the cost of education and care and we have many families who are forced into making a decision on whether it's worthwhile to return to work because of the cost of care."Ms McPhee says if she used child care she would not be able to afford to put food on the table.She is raising three children in regional Tasmania, and has to stay home to look after them. Ms McPhee said if she paid for child care, she would be unable to put food on the table to feed her family."I don't really have any other support with family and friends, so if they can't look after my children while I go do things, day care is the only option I've got, which I can't even afford to do that." The survey also found those living outside inner-metro areas were more likely to experience some degree of difficulty meeting the cost of child care.Sixty-five per cent of city respondents faced some difficulty affording child care but in rural Australia it was a massive 83 per cent. It has meant Ms McPhee has been unable to re-enter the workforce and spends most of her time at home. "Even if you were to get a job, the majority of the money would be going to child care and you still wouldn't be able to be any better off," she said. The Australia Talks National Survey asked 60,000 Australians about their lives and what keeps them up at night. Use ourThen, tune in at 8:00pm on Monday, June 21 to watch hosts Annabel Crabb and Nazeem Hussain take you through the key findings and explore the survey with some of Australia's best-loved celebrities.
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