Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The influence of early childhood education and care cannot be overstated. It's transformational. Children who receive high-quality education in their earliest years do better in school and at work. They grow up healthier and happier and lead more fulfilling lives. But across Australia, particularly in regional Australia, the early childhood education and care system is struggling.

As I visit early childhood education and care centres across my electorate, they all tell me the same story. They struggle to recruit, train and retain enough staff to meet community demand. In Wangaratta and Wodonga, there are 0.4 places per child. That's less than half the needed places. In places like Corryong, this can drop as low as 0.2 places per child. This means that four in five children will miss out on child care in their local community. Families are forced to wait for months or years on waitlists or take extreme measures to access child care. Take Megan Callus from Laceby in my electorate of Indi. Megan has been waiting for more than two years for a childcare place to become available at her nearest centre in Wangaratta. In the meantime, she's forced to drive her daughter to Benalla—an hour round trip twice a day requiring extra time and extra cost.

When parents can't access child care, it's disproportionately women who will leave the workforce to provide that care. This reinforces the gender pay gap and makes it harder for women to balance motherhood and work. Study after study shows that there is a direct correlation between the accessibility of child care and workforce participation of mothers with a child under five years of age. We also know that there's enormous untapped economic potential from getting more parents into the workforce. Even conservative estimates put this in the billions of dollars per year.

This is why I'm working to tackle childcare shortages across regional Australia, including in my electorate of Indi. This month I'll be hosting two play-date events in Wodonga and Wangaratta with the Parenthood, one of Australia's leading advocacy groups on early education and care. I want to hear from parents and families in my electorate about what childcare shortages mean for them to understand the impacts and challenges as I work for solutions. If you're a parent, a carer, a childcare worker, a grandparent or anyone who wants to share your story of childcare access, then join me on 17 July at the Wodonga library at Hyphen from 10 to 12 and at the Wangaratta Library from 2 until 4 pm. It will be a place to talk with other young families, hear of others' experiences and ask how we can make our childcare system work for us.