Talk of the town: Government needs to address the real issue with rural childcare

While this will assist many families, I believe there is a different elephant in the room when it comes to childcare.

The main concern for me is staffing.

There is a national daycare staffing shortage in this country, and with lack of incentives drawing people to the industry, our educators are leaving regional and remote areas to fill jobs in the big smoke.

According to a 2022 report, more than 26 per cent of people in regional Queensland are living in a "childcare desert".

The Far North region, which covers regions such as Cape York, Cairns and Dutton River, had the worst stats with 8.7 children competing for the one place in childcare.

The Central Highlands region, which covers towns like Capella, Emerald and Rollerston, had 7.1 children per space and the Biloela region, which also included Moura and Taroom, had 6.4 children per space.

The electorate of Kennedy had a 63 per cent childcare desert, with three or more children vying for a single childcare place.

In Mount Isa, I witnessed first hand the dreaded process of trying to get my child into daycare, facing up to an 18 month wait list and I had friends who had waited over two years in Cloncurry.

This new government subsidy isn't going to assist those on a wait list, or ease financial strain on families when the primary parent can't return to work because they can't secure daycare for their child.

And while many locals say, "just build another daycare for enough kids", this won't ease the demand because there won't be enough staff to run it.

I had my children in a Mount Isa daycare for four years and witnessed first hand the impact staffing shortages can have on a town.

If educators were away sick and the ratio of child:educator wasn't met, children were sent home. Then parents were required to take the day off to pick up and care for their child.

I've also seen daycare centres in Cloncurry and Julia Creek struggle for months to full-fill educator and director positions, and Normanton Childcare temporarily close because there weren't and still aren't enough government incentives to encourage people to relocate to regional and remote areas.

Could you imagine the knock on affect if an entire daycare centre had to close due to insufficient staffing? How many families it would impact? And how detrimental it would be to a rural or remote community?

For example without early childhood educators in Julia Creek, the facility would close, 16 kids would not have care, 16 families would have to reduce to one income so a parent can care for the kids, which means potentially 16 jobs are now vacant, impacting local businesses, hospitals or shops.

And as a result of a daycare closing, families leave town, and it becomes even harder to encourage people to move to rural and remote communities to fulfil vacant jobs because there is no daycare available.

I believe that state and federal government should look past their office window and realise that without early childhood educators a lot of them would not be sitting in their offices today.

They should back educators entering the industry or studying to become more qualified, and subsidise or waver fees if a commitment is made to working in rural and remote areas.

- NQR journalist, Samantha Campbell.

Talk of the Town is a weekly opinion piece written by ACM journalists. The thoughts expressed are their own.