Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier this year, the Mitchell Institute released a report into the availability of child care. They called it Deserts and oases, with 'deserts' meaning that they are very few childcare places available for the children and little ones wanting to attend. In my electorate of Bendigo, there is desert everywhere—whether it be in Elmore or Heathcote, in Castlemaine or Kyneton—and yet the previous government did very little to address this issue. They didn't work with local communities. They left it up to the market and created the problem that we have in towns like Kyneton: the fact that we have so many young families where women—it's predominantly women—cannot return to work.

I met with a number of these women, and their little ones, during the election campaign. They were deferring returning to work and were hoping that their bosses wouldn't make them redundant, because they had no available child care within an hour's radius of their town. They were looking at childcare options as far away as Bendigo and Melbourne. They're caught in between Bendigo and Melbourne; it's just a completely unacceptable option. They are working closely with community and not-for-profit organisations to try and find solutions.

It shouldn't have come to this crisis. We need to be working collectively and collaboratively with our communities in solving this childcare crisis. Our government will work together to make it happen. It's disappointing that the previous government let it get to this.