Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier today, the Minister for Social Services, the member for Kingston, spent some time in this chamber promoting—I would say being very proud—of the government's support of child care and, in particular, cheaper child care. It's a $4.7 billion package, and that could be lauded. For some families it reduces their contribution to their child care to 10 per cent.

But I'm here to say that I've got our shadow minister Angie Bell coming to my electorate next week because we have so many centres in Grey that can't access child care. For those towns, the only part they get to play in the government's new plan to subsidise 90 per cent of child care is that they get to pay extra for a service that somebody else can access, generally in the cities or the bigger centres, but they cannot access themselves. It seems incredibly unfair to me, given that the government likes to promote itself as being on the side of those who are disadvantaged, that so many of the people who live in small country towns are at this incredible disadvantage. It keeps good, well-trained people, normally women, out of the workforce. It is running grandparents ragged as they commute, in some cases hundreds of kilometres, to go and look after their grandchildren for a day or two days so their mother can go to work.

Next week, we'll be going to Wilmington. Wilmington is apparently about 50 kilometres from Port Augusta, over the other side of the Flinders Ranges. I met there earlier in the year with a group—Emma Brury and her team—and we'll be meeting with that group tomorrow. Wilmington has a population of about 500. Emma has been travelling over 100 kilometre a day, doing a round trip to drop her child off to child care.

From there, we're going to Orroroo. Orroroo has a population of 600. There are about 900 in the district council area. They have an occasional care model, which gives three hours on Thursdays, and RICE, which is an outback creche-type service, is there one day a week. This is clearly not enough for people to manage their lives. They've done surveys there and have had returns from 35 families. There are 75 children looking for extra child care.

From there we're going to Crystal Brook. This is a bigger town. It's not huge, but there are 1,500. There's no child care at all. Parents take their kids to Port Pirie and back. We'll be meeting there with Tamara Wilson and her team to try to map a way forward for Crystal Brook.

Some of these towns have a model called Rural Care which, at least in South Australia, is an arrangement between the Department for Education and the federal government where Rural Care accesses the subsidies and the education department then auspices these services. But it's limited. The education department in South Australia, for whatever reason, will not allow it to go past a staffing model of three. In some place they're limited by space. It could be expanded, but it's not allowed to be expanded. It seems to me that, in small rural towns, perhaps the education departments do have a great role to play in child care. It would certainly be in their interests to have the children coming to those facilities where they're going to be learning for a substantial part of their lives.

We're also visiting Kadina on the Copper Coast. They have a population of about 3,000 in the town and 15,000 in the general council area. They do have child care down there, but it's way, way too small and they need a major expansion. Ardrossan has a population of about 1,200. We'll be meeting there with Anna Webb and her team. Ardrossan is another town. It's a beautiful seaside town. It has 1,200 people and absolutely no child care.

This is a crisis. It has really reared its head since COVID. I think people are looking to get back into the workforce. Generally speaking, on average, grandparents are getting older and people are having their children at an older age. That means the parents' mums and dads are older when it comes to that stage. People are more mobile, so families have shifted into communities where they don't have that backup. It's holding people away from work. It's holding up Australia's economy. It's holding these country towns back and it's causing disruption in the lives of these people who are doing a good job of raising their families. The government, yes, by all means should support other childcare centres, but we need some serious attention in this area.