Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The current state of child care in regional Western Australia is dire. Economic and social wellbeing of communities is under threat because of the lack of affordable, accessible care. My electorate of Durack is not immune from this. In Kununurra, dozens of families have been left without child care for the past three months, following the sudden closure of the town's only childcare centre in December. Couples running businesses, working full time, without family support are now taking extended unpaid leave to care for their children. This affects every industry in Kununurra.

In Western Australia, Durack has been the hardest hit in attracting and retaining qualified childcare workers. On Monday, the Australian Childcare Alliance WA told the West Australian newspaper that the Mid West, Port Hedland and Kununurra had the greatest staffing difficulties due to high attraction costs, housing shortages and rising rents. The recent federal inquiry into child safety concerns in early learning was told that nearly 700,000 people are living in areas with little or no access to child care. Families around Australia are driving several hours to neighbouring towns for child care, or they're turning down full-time work because care is simply not available.

These problems have been created by the Albanese Labor government's approach to child care. Their view is that child care should be universal—not just universal but 'one size fits all' and all centre based. This is simply not possible, especially in regional towns like those in my electorate of Durack. Every family is unique. Cultures, work patterns, faith, traditions and support networks—well, they all vary. Some families rely on grandparents; others prefer in-home or family day care. A system that is built around a universal method does not represent Australia or the diversity needed within the system. In contrast, the coalition believes that parental choice should drive childcare policy. Government should be empowering families with real choices and options, not forcing them into an approach that suits Canberra bureaucrats. Currently, these choices are not available to these families.

Whether it's the current fuel shortage, the banning of live sheep exports, the firearm law changes in Western Australia, changes in Western Australia impacting our fishing families or a poorly designed childcare system, Labor governments are, time and time again, demonstrating that they either don't understand regional Western Australia or simply don't care about regional Western Australia. This issue of child care is just another example of regional Western Australians being treated with disrespect and disregard by the Albanese Labor government.

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