Community
5 March, 2025
Dyson throws support behind struggling parents
INDEPENDENT candidate for Wannon Alex Dyson has pledged to throw his support behind plans to alleviate the strain on young families struggling to access childcare and early education.
Mr Dyson last week visited Cobden with The Parenthood campaign director Maddy Butler to hear from parents calling for reform to end the region’s status as a ‘childcare desert’.
The Parenthood, a collective of 72 organisations advocating for improved childcare and early education availability in the south west, recently released its impact study titled ‘The negative impacts of inaccessible early learning on regional, rural and remote communities’ which highlights the dire need for improvement and mitigation strategies.
The study struck a chord with the wider community, and Mr Dyson said he wanted to amplify the voices of those impacted to find real solutions.
“Talking to parents and grandparents in Cobden, Camperdown, Terang and across the district – it’s a real struggle for people to be able to have care for their children,” he said.
“Childcare helps to enable parents to get back to work, with benefits for the economy and societal benefits such as mental health.
“The good news is there are incredible, hardworking people who have put the time, energy and resources in to coming up with practical solutions.
“Meeting Maddy and opening the door to parents in the region to come and discuss how impediments and solutions, like those in The Parenthood report in to the negative impacts of inaccessible early learning on regional and rural communities, can be advocated for and implemented in Parliament and can have flow on effects for regional communities.”
Mr Dyson said he had already made a commitment to throw his support behind a $5 million investment in to the development of a Childcare Centre of Excellence at Warrnambool’s Deakin University to address workforce shortages and provide training.
He is also eyeing the possibility of mobile services being used to help fill the gaps in childcare availability.
“Unfortunately, the same solutions for metropolitan areas don’t often work for smaller communities,” Mr Dyson said.
“One size doesn’t fit all.
“Being a regional and rural independent candidate, I want to make a push for the solutions so parents, no matter where they live, can access affordable childcare.”
Ms Butler said the wider south west was among the worst areas for childcare availability, which had a detrimental impact on parents, children and employers.
“The current early learning market fails regional and rural communities,” she said.
“It’s almost impossible sometimes to access childcare for your children.
“It’s not just for the children to reap the benefits of early learning and cares – education, social, health and wellbeing – it’s so parents and carers can get back to work, so whole communities can thrive.
“If your local teachers, nurses, doctors and paramedics can’t get back to work, that impacts the whole region.
“Where the market fails, government needs to step in.”
Ms Butler said The Parenthood was calling on all levels of government to collaboratively work to address the two biggest issues – shortages in staff and place availability.
She said this would require a multi-faced approach to assess the effectiveness of service delivery, undertake a workforce strategy, heighten staff training and increase site funding as part of a long-term vision for the sector.
“This would essentially mean every single child would have some form of access to early childhood education,” Ms Butler said.
“Supply site funding is important – in order for a lot of service providers to be viable and sustainable, they need, anecdotally, 75 to 100 enrolments.
“That’s not always possible in smaller towns, but even six children have a legitimate need for care.
“Looking at what other service models can be provided, supply site funding can ensure sustainability and viability of services.”
Among those frustrated is Cobden mother Alicia Henderson, who started looking for childcare for her son, Ollie, while she was still in her first trimester.
“When I tried to inquire about childcare I was told it would be up to 18-months wait time,” she said.
“It was the same story looking in Camperdown, Timboon, Terang and Warrnambool – it was all the same.
“We’ve managed to find childcare after a year but it felt like a fluke because we were so far down the waiting list.
“It’s challenging if you want to go back to work, especially just trying to have a plan.”
Mrs Henderson was eventually able to secure a spot for her son but the lengthy waiting lists throughout the region forced her to make decisions before she was ready, and complicated her hopes of developing a plan for what her return to work would look like.
“I had to say yes to a spot even when I wasn’t super ready, and I had to take it from the start of the year even though I didn’t want it until April,” she said.
“I’m a vet, and I wanted to have some sort of plan before I went on maternity leave, but you find yourself doubting if it can work unless you can secure childcare.
“My plan is to go back to work when Ollie is eight months old but there’s a lot of parents in the same circumstance.
“It gets very stressful.”
Mrs Henderson is among those who consider addressing ‘childcare deserts’ as a priority this election, as an issue which has impacted her and one which will continue to impact others.
“It’s such a need in this area,” she said.
“It seems like there’s not enough centres, but the centres you talk to don’t have enough staff.
“It’s not worth them doing another centre until then, so we need people and we need facilities.”
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