Why is it just Mums who can see the childcare crisis in rural Australia?
Show Notes
Are we allowed to call it a 'crisis yet?"
As any Mum in rural and regional Australia and they can tell you stress and the cost of not having access to reliable childcare.
Rural women are waiting months if they are 'lucky', but it is not unusual now to wait years for a place in childcare. The Parenthood has released a report, called "Choiceless" which sheds light on the difficult experiences more than 150 women around the country have had.
According to the report about 450 towns with a population under 3, 000 do not have centre based daycare.
This is affecting the careers of women in the country and also the development of children, who aren't always school-ready by the age they should be. The housing crisis and labour shortage is directly linked to the lack of childcare options too, yet you don't hear about it in the media, nearly as much. So we are.
Hear from:
Tara Rich - Mother and Communications Professional, who has spent nearly a decade looking for suitable childcare for her family.
Maddy Butler - Campaign Director at the Parenthood, who is advocating for the Federal Government to better fund a multi-level approach to improving childcare options.
There's no single solution to this. It's complex, but the Parenthood is arguing for a National Workforce Strategy to boost childcare educator numbers in rural and regional Australia.
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Tara Rich: 0:06
Two in five kids in regional, remote Australia are not arriving at school ready at the same level academically or emotionally or socially to what their city counterparts are, and that's directly linked to the fact there's not enough local or any early year childcare services.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 0:25
Right now, I think we're seeing more and more women and men as well standing up and saying this isn't good enough. We've got to have access to childcare and improve this situation.
Kirsten Diprose: 0:36
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Ducks on the Pond brought to you by the Rural Podcasting Co. I'm Kirsten Dipros and I'm Jackie Elliott. This episode is brought to you by Gap Advisors. Now, gap Advisors is founded by Susan Davies, who is a chartered accountant and a rural woman who can help you grow your business, check if you have your account set up right, and so much more. So thank you for sponsoring this episode and we'll hear from Susan at the end of this particular episode. Right now, I reckon, jackie, this topic is really going to hit home for many of you. We're talking childcare or, more to the point, the lack of childcare in rural and regional Australia.
Jackie Elliott: 1:19
Yeah, I don't have kids, Kirsten, but I just know how big of an issue it is for many of my friends and family and the flow and effect it has to all of us living in rural Australia.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:30
Exactly. It's not just about being able to outsource our parenting. I promise I love my kids, but you know, for many it's about keeping your career alive, contributing financially to your family, looking after your mental health and ensuring that your children are ready for school.
Jackie Elliott: 1:47
Kirsten, you spoke with Maddie Butler from the Parenthood, who has released a report which she sheds light on the limited access to early childhood education and care in rural, regional and remote Australia and the profound consequences of this issue.
Kirsten Diprose: 2:00
They interviewed more than 150 families and you can imagine the overwhelming response was that there just isn't enough access to childcare for parents in the country. And, jackie, you spoke to mum of three, tara Rich, who lives in the Wimmera in Victoria and has spent close to a decade trying to find suitable childcare for her family.
Jackie Elliott: 2:22
That's ridiculous, I know that's right. So Tara literally spent nine years where she wasn't able to access childcare for her children, and on top of that, her firstborn son has severe allergies, which added to the complexity of the situation. So let's introduce you to Tara now.
Tara Rich: 2:40
Thanks, jackie, it's really great to be chatting with you.
Tara Rich: 2:43
Yeah, I think I am reflective of just so many of the mums, particularly in the community that I live in. We got sucked in by a handsome farmer to move to a sunny little Garoke in the West Wimmera of Victoria, and there's a pool of women here who have all moved to the area for love, and all these women have had careers that may have been in or outside of farming, but there's just this incredibly talented pool of women who are working in healthcare and education. And, yeah, I was working in police when I first moved to the area, but after becoming a mum and living an hour from our police station, I stopped doing that. Yeah, I ended up having just completely evolved my career. I did a business degree, had two more babies and have been working in communication since. So I've been quite a journey, but a really good one, and I'm really lucky to be where I am today and able to work from home.
Jackie Elliott: 3:38
Wonderful. And actually, just going back on that, how long were you in the police force?
Tara Rich: 3:42
for A bit of a funny story. My journey there started unexpectedly when I was 18, I finished VCE and I got accepted into Melbourne Uni to study Ag Science. But I was a little bit like I was a farm girl and I was a little bit nervous and hesitant to go to the big smoke. And also it was at a time when a crew in Ag was very unattractive, Like I was in like 2005/06, there was a bad drought. I remember my dad couldn't sell merino wethers and he was buying feed and cutting water and it was a really tough time in Ag and so I was doubting my choice in what my career in Ag would look like.
Tara Rich: 4:20
And at the time I was working as like a grain sampling chick at the AWB at Dimboola with my sister who went to local Ag College and thought maybe if I just take a gap here I'll study and I'll keep studying, keep my mind ticking along. And I applied for a business traineeship which ended up being at a local police station in their intelligence unit, and so I was just doing admin and Coro. But occasionally you'd hear chat about what jobs were going on in town and what the local detectives were up to and that sort of made me get a bit of excitement and a new interest in what my life could look like outside of what I had imagined it to. So as a young, I think I was 19, yeah, when I applied, signed up to join the police force and by the time I was like, yeah, the January after I was off at the Academy in Glenwaverly and I graduated just before my 21st birthday.
Jackie Elliott: 5:16
So so tell me more about how starting a family and welcoming Finn into the world, how many years ago, and and what that looked like for you.
Tara Rich: 5:28
Yes, I get a bit teary thinking about it. So Craig and I had got engaged and we'd been chatting about thinking about having a baby and we actually fell pregnant pretty quickly and it was very much a welcome surprise. But I think in hindsight the year that we did for pregnant with Finn was a really hard year for me, Like I was absolutely questioning how I was going to manage my life as a police officer and a new mum living out of town with no childcare. I was driving an hour each way to go to work and also there are a lot of things going on at home. That year my parents had to sell their farm and so that was incredibly hard seeing my childhood home sort of change and what I'd imagine my life to be like.
Jackie Elliott: 6:23
And then Jackie, and please take a breather if you like. And look, I can really sympathise with you, tara. We had to sell my family farm when I was 16 and it probably took me at least 10 years to get over that, and it is a grief that always crops up, like there's always memories of a family farm.
Tara Rich: 6:45
Yeah, I think, jackie. I think I never really dealt with it because I was just in the throes of motherhood and I'll explain that as well after Finn was born. But yeah, it was just this whirlwind year, and so I was 27 and I think I felt a lot of pressure because I was a young woman, I was a police officer, I should have been able to process it and I understood the reasons. You know why things were happening and they're completely out of my control, but I think just that connection that I had with Horam and knowing that I would no longer had that was really hard. So I think, like my pregnancy with Finn and being excited about him coming along was really essentially meant to be and probably what helped me get through. And also, about four weeks before Finn was born, my beautiful grandmother passed away and it was just really challenging time because my whole life as I'd known it was changing and I was really unsure on how that was going to look. And I think as well I felt a lot of internalised pressure, particularly policing, because at the time there was very much a cultural belief and I think a lot of other people in the job who would have been policing back then would agree that working parents are probably an inconvenience on the roster and which is a terrible thing to say, but it's so true and I just didn't know how like that was my identity. I only ever worked weekends. I worked Christmases. I lived shift work for seven years or longer and only hung out with coppers a lot of the time, and so I was really just questioning what's my life going to look like now?
Tara Rich: 8:23
And then Finn was born and, living in the Wimmera, we didn't plan the date of his birth very well, but he was born during harvest and so it was just as a first time parent, I think I was thrown into the world of motherhood and I was on my outplates. I had no idea what I was doing, like all new parents don't. But one thing with Finn that we noticed from the moment he was born was that he was just really unsettled and he would cry a lot and he would vomit a lot and anyway, by about four months, he wasn't sleeping, I wasn't sleeping, he was really unsettled. Baby had a lot of rashes and by about four months of age, like when we were starting to introduce foods, we would recognise that when you'd eat certain foods you'd break out in hives and back then so Finn's now nine we would go and visit a local GP and they would say things like oh, you must have a dust, my allergy, your house is too dusty, or maybe he's been bitten by a spider, you need to get your house bug sprayed. And so I was just exhausted, I was tired. Also, I forgot to say we got married when Finn was four months old.
Tara Rich: 9:35
We also brought a new farm, which is where we live now. So it was just so many things going, and I think that's why sometimes I catch moments of sadness about the farm, because I never actually really processed it. I just kept going, as you do. And anyway, I sort of noticed, because the time we had Finn, a lot of our friends were having babies too, and their babies were different. They were settled and content and growing, and by this stage Finn had been failing to thrive and I just did not know what I was doing wrong and what was wrong with him. I was exhausted but a bit anxious too, because I didn't know if what I was doing was the right thing. And so, anyway, one day I got a little bit anxious and I was like one day I was feeding you breakfast and one of the maternal health nurses said you know what? Just give him a wheat big for brekkie. Save your money on rice cereal. If he doesn't like it, it's probably not very nutritious, give it to him. And so I did.
Tara Rich: 10:28
And we found out after that day that Finn has enough laxness to wait. And yeah, living an hour away from the local hospital, like he started vomiting, swelling up pale and floppy. I took him to the local Bush nursing centre. They said, yeah, it looks like he might have had a spider bite. He'll be fine, go and put him home to bed. Thankfully I didn't listen to that. But, yeah, followed my instinct and took him into Horsham and some student doctors from the city were there and they gave me a pamphlet about food allergy and he received the treatment he needed.
Tara Rich: 11:00
But then we didn't really know what the extent of his allergies were, and so we then started a long journey of seeing paediatric allergists. And hand in hand like food allergy, it's a chronic medical condition that your child is living with, and it comes hand in hand with other issues like eczema and hay fever. And then Finn had to get his tonsils. He had sleep apnea, so he had his tonsils and adenoids out, and then he had speech therapy because he couldn't speak properly because of his tonsils and adenoids, and so it was just this rolling kind of continual learning process, and so I felt really unsure about when it was time for me to go back to work, if I wanted him to be left in the care of other people, and the other reality was that for me to go back to work, I'd be driving an hour and putting him in daycare, and, being a shift worker, you might have to do two hours overtime after your shift. So I just felt really uneasy about losing control of what he was eating and who he was with, but also inflicting on him 10 hour day or 12 hour day just so I could go to work. So, anyway, yeah, so I decided that I'll resign and we just managed getting through diagnosing Finn and sorting out his health conditions, and when we did get a diagnosis, he was allergic to cow's milk, egg, wheat. He still is allergic to wheat, dust, smarts, I don't know everything.
Tara Rich: 12:28
Life came easier because we actually knew what we could do and what we couldn't do, but it was at that point I realised if I want to do something as well, I'm going to have to go with the changes that have come about in my life.
Tara Rich: 12:38
So that was when I completed or started doing a business degree and I completed that over four years, so throughout my pregnancy with Bells, our middle child, and finished it just when I was pregnant with Burke, our third child, and I think in a way that was a great thing for me to do it like it was something that I had control over and I found very empowering for my own well-being and also in the place where you don't get a bachelor degree or anything, you get a diploma.
Tara Rich: 13:08
But I thought, if I want to have some form of professional opportunity in the bush, I'm going to have to upskill, and I was able to do that. But again, getting back to childcare, without the support of my mother-in-law I wouldn't have been able to do that and I also relied heavily on private nannies, on babysitters that are just normal people or teenagers or young women in their 20s getting some form of income. So you're paying premium nannying and childcare rates but they're not actually like qualified educators. We did have one friend who was running a family daycare centre and that was incredible because you knew that when I was studying the kids were getting the right learning environment they needed for their early years and they were safe where are you at now and what over the last few years?
Jackie Elliott: 13:58
obviously either working from home or you've got two other younger children. How has childcare transformed?
Tara Rich: 14:07
yeah, so it's really interesting. As I mentioned at the start, the region which I live in has this incredible pool of local women, and a lot of them have really great professional backgrounds before they moved here, and so for them to continue on in their profession meant that accessing childcare was a necessity. But what that looked like is you're driving an hour to Narraquat, or you're driving now to Horsham and then you're not home for eight hours and there's a lot of juggling to make sure you're going to make it back for the bus, or there was no rebate nine years ago, so you spend up to $120 or $130 a day on your children's childcare for you to go to work. When you're equating the fuel and the travel and the time, absolutely you're going to work to pay for the childcare.
Tara Rich: 14:53
Yeah, what's the point? But then the point is, if you're not working and you're not contributing to your family finances in the years to come, when they're out of that bubble, what opportunity do you have as a professional, working woman in the bush to access meaningful career opportunities? And so it's trying to find that balance, and so I've seen that locally. But back when Bell's Amid all was three this was just before COVID we were enrolling the girls she's a little girl lady. I'm thinking of who I was having this conversation with, and it was with this initiative called the Buy Five initiative and they're based out of Horsham and they're trying to improve the disconnect that kids in rural, regional Australia get compared to city kids. And we were having this conversation about how access to childcare benefits you and how it would make your life better.
Tara Rich: 15:46
And I recall at the time three-year-old Kinder was two, three hour days a week and one of the kindergarten teachers said to us you realise that this isn't a daycare facility, this is kindergarten, and so you trying to work your own professional work days around the early kindergarten program is completely unacceptable. This is not, this isn't a drop and forget. And we just felt so insulted because we're like what's the other option? There was no playgroup at the time. There is no daycare locally, like after I had Burke, our third child, I was working locally but then I couldn't get daycare for him in the local town. So I took up a job 60Ks away but then, because it wasn't on a three-year-old Kinder day, I had to find care for my three-year-old, but then I still had to be back home by 3.30 to get my son off the bus and childcare wasn't rebateable. So it was like everything had to go by clockwork for me to get to work. Then I had to get my mother-in-law to pick up my three-year-old and she had to be available to do it, and then I had to get my son from childcare and drive the 60Ks back to the bus. And if one thing wasn't ticking along in the order it needed to, then the day wasn't going to plan out. And when you're investing 120 bucks a day in that childcare, plus fuel, plus time, plus all the kids being fit and well, there was a lot riding on it and it was a lot of pressure and I realised after a term of doing that it just wasn't sustainable.
Tara Rich: 17:13
Because my husband is a farmer, it's not always possible for him to have the kids or to pick the kids up where. The layout of where our farms are is that they're across three properties and one is 40 minutes from where we live and the other one is 20 minutes from where we live and if you're not going to miss the bus pickup, you're either going to be calling your mother-in-law or a friend or a neighbour and hoping that someone is available to get the kids. But then that's a favour that they don't necessarily have to be available for. It's just we live in a great community and we're often they're not. If you did ask someone, they absolutely would, but when it's something you rely on to then help you do your job as like a working professional, it's just a lot of pressure. So I ended up actually resigning from my current job in Combs because it was just really hard. Also, this was when so Finn had started school by this stage and we had COVID lockdowns and we ended up homeschooling for six terms.
Tara Rich: 18:10
Because of all the lockdowns and because Craig, being the farmer, was the essential worker, he could go to work and not stay home, and I wasn't in the category where I could go to work but then who was going to be home with the kids anyway, because someone had to be home to look after them. I really wanted to work, I wanted to contribute to my own professional development, I wanted to contribute to our family finances, but there wasn't a lot of opportunity in COVID lockdown. But then, in saying that, there was the great opportunity that evolved, which was working from home or remote working capability, and that was how I managed to work with the VFF Farm Safety Program and that was just hugely life changing for me in actually being able to access employment, which I found very meaningful, and I got a lot of fulfilment out of personally being a farmer's wife and a mum to farm kids. And when we were growing up, one of my sisters had an accident on a quad bike and she was really severely injured, and so it just meant a lot for me to be able to participate in that role with the Farm Safety Program.
Tara Rich: 19:20
Fast forward, we're now in 2024, finished up with that project last year in July, and it's not until this year that I've been able to access childcare for Burke, our four year old, and he's also now old enough to get two days a week of funded kindergarten, which is incredible, but I work three days a week, and so trying to actually be a really present and the best mum that I can be when he's home is really difficult when you're trying to also deliver work that you're committed to and you're expected to be providing. Yeah, we're two weeks into that and that's only been possible since July last year, also when they changed the threshold rebate for childcare subsidised places, because in our local community the childcare centres are operated in a system where the childcare funded positions are prioritised over privately funded positions. So there was a big waitlist and even the effort that the local community in Eden Hope went to to get in that centre it's so admirable. There was a group of mums they recognized there were 40 kids in the township needing care, this group of mums all wanting to return to work or contribute to interest of their own outside of motherhood and needing that care for their children. And yeah, after a couple of years they've got the childcare centre there. So fortunate to get that. But it's taken nine years.
Tara Rich: 20:47
This didn't exist when Finn was born and I sometimes question, if it had, would I have picked up on his allergies sooner. And he did have to have speech therapy and he was behind with his reading when he started school. Would I have had a better chance for his outcome had we had that access back then? And I know research that's come out recently shows that two in five kids in regional remote Australia are not arriving at school ready at the same level academically or emotionally or socially to what their city counterparts are and that's directly linked to the fact there's not enough local or any early year childcare services. It's certainly gotten better as my journey into parenting has evolved, but also I think the Bush kids are still missing out on opportunities because it's just more challenging to access here.
Jackie Elliott: 21:43
Yeah, and it's definitely a disadvantage. And I think perhaps it's even more of a disadvantage when you look at Finn being your firstborn and you're navigating new parent things, whereas then you get down to your four-year-old, who's actually now got access to this.
Tara Rich: 21:58
Yeah, so he loves his school. Now he goes to a beautiful little school, also in Eden Hope, where but goes to childcare and I think when you have a happy child, you just feel like full it. Oh god, I'm getting excited again. Yeah, you feel full in your heart because when your child's miserable and whether it's because they're lagging behind academically or they don't have the right friendship group or they're struggling to connect with other kids when you see your children just beaming with happiness and they're just feeling accepted for who they are, that's really lovely. And so we definitely feel that with his new school and I think a big part for him still having and living with food allergies is just inclusion. And in the bush you can't go into a milk bar and get a gluten-free pie and you can't go to the footy and get a gluten-free dim sim or something. Really, what that means is that we take his food everywhere that is gluten free, which is just how we live and that's normal for us. But his school's so lovely, like if they do a sausage sizzle, all the sausages are gluten-free, so he can line up with the other kids and get a salt. It's so simple, it's just such a simple gesture, but for him. That's showing him that he's accepted and I think that's been the most beautiful thing. Yeah, and then my other two kids are really happy where they are as well. They don't have any food allergies. It's just a really nice place to be.
Tara Rich: 23:24
As they get a bit older, it is getting a little bit easier because, I don't know, I think you trust yourself a bit more as a parent and also I think there's less expectation on yourself and you're more accepting of your kids for who they are, not what you thought they might be or what you imagined your life would look like. And I think, going back to the grief around the farm, what I imagined when I was pregnant was the Christmases at home and family events at home. And now that, yeah, I've accepted that my life is the way it is. It's not how I imagined it I find myself grieving over this imaginary process that never even really existed. So I think, yeah, making peace with where you're at and acceptance of some days, life's chaos.
Tara Rich: 24:08
Sometimes you can get childcare, sometimes you can't. It's all just a part of being a parent. And, yeah, and it just perhaps presents a few more challenges in the bush when access to these necessities of education and early childhood and health services are just that little bit further. The waiting lists are a little bit longer. Yeah, I think it's getting better, but there's definitely more work that we can be striving to achieve and really it's for the betterment of the children as well as the parents.
Jackie Elliott: 24:41
Do you think there'll ever be a career back for you in the police force when all your children are growing up and heading off to high school, or even after that?
Tara Rich: 24:52
No, I think I actually got out at a good time, like I, looking back absolutely, I do believe if everything happens for a reason and and you may not know what that deeper purpose is at the time. But I have a lot of friends who I'm still going to touch with who are in the police force and I think for that job you give so much of your life. It might be your time away from family, it might be your mental health, the trauma that you experience growing to jobs. It's real and I just don't think that my well-being and my life is worth that. I know that it's not always the case for everybody, but I think it's a really relentless job and the amount of energy you have to give it is huge.
Kirsten Diprose: 25:32
I think a lot of women will resonate with that. Sometimes your old city career just doesn't fit in. I knew I couldn't be a TV reporter anymore and I was actually quite okay with that. But I always say you take your skills and your network with you. But gosh, you and Tara had me reaching for the tissues in that interview, jackie.
Jackie Elliott: 25:53
Yeah, and like we actually both cried, I think, together. Tara was emotional sharing her story and I guess even though I don't have children, we probably had very similar parts to our story when we were discussing what her life story and what she was sharing. But also we did want to add that Tara messaged me after our interview and and it's always a great thing thinking back on what did I actually miss to say but Tara did message to say she isn't doing this all on her own and that she does have a very wonderful and supportive husband and even with a supportive partner and all that family help, still not having reliable child care really makes life hard and puts a handbrake on your career and, more broadly, society.
Kirsten Diprose: 26:36
the housing crisis and the labour shortage are all very much linked to the fact that women can't work as much as they want to.
Jackie Elliott: 26:45
Yeah, and you interviewed Maddie Butler from the Parenthood about the bigger picture.
Kirsten Diprose: 26:50
I did, and their report, which is called Choiceless, really details the stories of lots of families and their experiences with a lack of child care in regional and remote Australia. Did you know that roughly nine million Australians live in a child care desert and that about 453 towns with a population under 3000 do not have centre based daycare? And those numbers? Are actually mind blowing, maddie says the Parenthood actually titled their report Choiceless, because the families featured have been left without a choice.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 27:24
So we're a national not-for-profit advocacy organisation for families all across Australia. I've been here since 2021 in the role of campaign director and last year we launched our campaign calling for improved access to early childhood education and care in regional, rural and remote Australia. So I've been leading that campaign and from talking to just so many parents and carers who have struggled to access child care and the flow on effects that has on not only their families but their towns, their communities it's just such an important issue that that's what motivates me to get up and work on it every day.
Kirsten Diprose: 28:07
I think a lot of our listeners will know immediately that this is such an important issue. But do you think broader society gets it in the same way that we do?
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 28:19
That is the million dollar question. I honestly don't think they do, and I think that's part of our role at the Parenthood is to really show the whole country that this is a real issue that affects regional, rural and remote areas. We need the whole country to have equitable access to child care and to work and to just balance family life the way that they would like to and that best suits their family situation.
Kirsten Diprose: 28:53
When did it start becoming a problem for rural and regional Australians? Has it always been a problem?
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 29:01
Honestly, from what I've heard, I think it's always been a problem. There's always been a real struggle to access any form of childcare, but unfortunately, and it's so often just fallen on the shoulders of the women in these communities. They've just been told to put up with it, they've just got on with it. They've just done it and made the sacrifices, haven't had careers or have just struggled with raising lots of children and having perhaps potential mental health issues as well play a part, and that's why, right now, I think we're seeing more and more women and men as well standing up and saying this isn't good enough. We've got to have access to childcare and improve this situation. Now the Parenthood's done a report.
Kirsten Diprose: 29:49
What's it found when surveying the country about the situation in regional and rural Australia?
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 29:56
Well, it feels like the situation's pretty dire. Through our report, choiceless, the Plight of Parents in Accessing Regional, rural and Remote Early Learning and Care is essentially a storytelling report, so we've got over 150 case studies and stories in there from families, parents, carers, community members from all over the country talking about the issues that they've had in trying to access any form of early childhood education and care and the impacts that it's had on them, and so we know it's a real struggle that there's no state or territory that isn't facing this issue, while this is an issue all across regional, rural and remote Australia. There's no one size fits solution that there are similar challenges but there's also varying needs. The market as it is right now is not working. We can't just roll out one solution. We need to be creative and flexible and have a variety of solutions.
Kirsten Diprose: 30:56
Yeah, what do some of those solutions look like? Because I know a lot of places are just struggling to find childcare workers. So there are physical facilities. We just can't find the people to be there to look after the kids.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 31:10
Yes, unfortunately that happens in a lot of regional and rural areas. There's the centres, but they're not functioning at full capacity because they don't have the educators. So in that regard, we'd love to see a national workforce strategy that's tailored for regional, rural and remote educators, to attract and retain them in these areas, and that should look like better pay, better conditions, better recognition, which are just issues that apply to all educators across the country, but also workforce initiatives such as relocation packages to encourage people to these areas. And we also know that affordable housing is a huge issue. So if we could look at some ways of helping educators find places local to these centres, that could really help with retention.
Kirsten Diprose: 32:05
People in the city often think, oh, it's cheap in the country and it was, but not anymore. In a lot of regional centres, it's so expensive and, yeah, if you're on an educator wage, you can't afford to stay in a house in a regional city.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 32:20
It's ridiculous, exactly, and there are some regional areas that are tourist areas, so they have a huge shift in their population and they might have. Then a lot of the houses are Airbnbs or holiday properties and that then really affects the rental prices and the property prices and educators just can't enter into that housing market.
Kirsten Diprose: 32:44
What about the responsibility of employers and education centres? Do we need to be thinking more about providing childcare alongside work? Can workplaces potentially provide something here?
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 33:00
That's definitely an option and that is something that we've seen occasionally happen. We know that in Heathcote in Victoria, that it was the mining company as well as some other organisations. But I believe the mining company was one of the main institutions that recognised the need for childcare for their employees and so they helped set up a working group that could then go out and find a location, find a service provider and get the centre up and running. And that is actually one of our case studies in our report and it's a huge success story. They've now got a centre there which has really helped with the employees at the mine and at the local hospital.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 33:43
But ultimately the issue is that because there may not be employers who can afford to do that in certain areas and we know as well that in a lot of these communities they're considered thin markets and so there's just not the demand for a service provider to come in and to be viable and sustainable and to keep that service going, and that's for profit providers and for not for profit providers. It's just not profitable for them and it's not sustainable for them and that's just not fair on the children, even if there are towns where there's only five children who need care. That's still a really legitimate need, and their families deserve access. So that's why we think that the government should step in and adopt a market stewardship role. So similar to the way that they deliver some form of primary or high school education for every child across the country, we'd like to see them deliver some form of early childhood education and care for every single child, regardless of their postcode.
Kirsten Diprose: 34:51
And what would that look like? How would that actually happen? You know, like around where I live there's an entire childcare centre in a town that just hasn't been running for about two years. There's plenty of space, it's just there's no one who can run it. There's no one to work there anymore.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 35:08
Yeah, no, it's a huge issue and it's definitely not a simple issue. There's just no one quick fix for this, which is why we want the government to really look at what is needed.
Kirsten Diprose: 35:22
What is the local state or council that you're looking at, or all of them, because a lot of councils are involved in childcare or some aspects of childcare.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 35:30
Yes, ultimately, we would love for it to be a coordinated approach from all levels of government.
Kirsten Diprose: 35:35
We haven't really touched on yet the effects that not having childcare has individually and for families, but also at a broader scale. It sounds like a dumb question, but spell it out what it means to not have access to childcare.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 35:51
Not at all a dumb question, and I think people don't realise how many flow on effects there are. So, starting with children, they just miss out on the educational, social, health and wellbeing benefits that early childhood education and care provides. And so we're seeing children starting school underprepared, especially when it comes to socialisation. They just haven't had that time with their peers and often they can have a lot of separation anxiety. And we're also seeing that these kids are often slipping through the cracks and learning difficulties or other developmental issues just aren't being kicked up until they start school. And we know that the earlier that these issues are picked up, the better it is for the children and for their families.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 36:40
In terms of parents yeah, especially mums it can be really hard to return to the workforce if they don't have access to any childcare.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 36:49
And I know from personal experience the more time you spend out of the workforce, the harder it is to just maintain your career and to get that career progression that you'd really like.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 37:02
And right now as well, with the rising costs of living, so many families require two incomes just to survive, not even to thrive, and so we're seeing a lot of families who are in a real financial predicament because they're unable to access to even part-time incomes but full-time incomes, and let alone for single-parent families as well, where this is really difficult for them to get to work at all. And then the flow-on effects for communities are that if parents who are teachers, nurses, doctors, physios, OTs, they're just not able to return to work in the capacity that their town needs. And so not only are we seeing huge wait lists for childcare centres, but we're seeing two-year wait lists to, say, a therapist or a physio, or the schools are just really struggling to get teaching staff in there as well. And then that's affecting the liberability of the regions. Young families aren't moving out into the regions or they're moving away because they just need access to childcare.
Kirsten Diprose: 38:09
I imagine for you it must be frustrating to try to campaign on something that is clearly so important, but we hear all the time about the housing crisis and we understand how that impacts the labour force and all of these other things cost of living. The childcare piece is so important too, but you don't hear about it as much and I guess how much it costs, because childcare isn't cheap either. That's the irony the educators aren't getting paid much, but it costs a lot to put your child in care.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 38:43
Yes, indeed, and the Parenthood is also advocating for affordable access to childcare. That's so imperative for families. Unfortunately, it's a bit of a moot point in the regions, because if you don't just have access at all, affordability isn't even an issue. But yes, you're so right, it's one of these systemic issues and they're all interconnected. If we could improve access to early learning and care and improve access to housing, we would really just set families up for much more success and we'd see them thrive rather than just yet try to survive.
Kirsten Diprose: 39:23
On a personal level when my kids were in childcare their primary school age now but I could get into childcare. It was tough, like I was on multiple lists and had to get where I could, but fortunately for me it was a lot easier than it is for mums and dads today. But I needed to work for my own mental health. I worked two or three days a week and I loved being able to be at home with my kids some of the time, but I also really loved being able to work and leave the house to go to work. It was a huge part of my mental health and something we don't really talk about as much. We talk about oh, this will improve this for society and it gets women back in the workforce and career progression, but I know for a lot of women it keeps you sane. Yeah, here I said it. We love our kids, but they drive us mad.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 40:15
It's so true, and we think that parents and carers deserve the choice to make those decisions about how they want to parent, and parents are at their best when they have some respite and they have some time to talk to other adults, because I know that a two-year-old and a four-year-old, that's just not quite the conversation level. I want to have 24, seven, as divine and gorgeous as they are, and yeah. So we went to Canberra to launch our report in November last year and we brought two spokespeople with us, and one of them, Catherine from Rainbow in Victoria.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 40:54
She had suffered from postnatal anxiety after the birth of her second child and it was really difficult for her. She didn't have any access to childcare and her husband was out working like 16 to 17-hour days during harvest, and that harvest was a particularly long one and lasted eight weeks, and so she's just solo parenting. She had help from her mother-in-law and then occasionally help from a woman in town, but the woman in town also had her own children and if they were sick then there's no care whatsoever, and that was only one day a week anyway. It's just. It's really tough on parents and that's something as well. Our metropolitan counterparts don't always understand the isolation aspect. You don't just have the street of neighbours that you can just quickly open your window and have a chat with. It's really important for parents and carers to be able to access their community, to access work, to access mental health supports, and that includes allowing them to access childcare for their children.
Kirsten Diprose: 42:02
For me. I remember I loved going into town to work. I was working on the radio. It meant, yes, I got to interact with adults, I got to walk down the street and get a coffee, just small things like that, but it really just brightened my day and I absolutely love where I live and wouldn't change that. But when you've got young kids, you know how hard it is to leave the house sometimes, and childcare is just this piece that allows you to get aspects of your life that otherwise you then lose because you are at home with the kids, quite literally otherwise.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 42:37
Exactly, and one thing that probably isn't talked enough about either is just the whole load that's on parents Often it falls on mothers as well of just when do you have time to cook and to clean and to do the washing and to fold the washing and all those other smaller things that can be really hard when you've got kids under five crawling all over you. Parents and carers just really need those extra support. They can't just be on their own.
Kirsten Diprose: 43:07
I don't know what happened to society that we kind of landed here. I don't know if you've got any thoughts? On that, but you just go. I don't think it was meant to quite be like this.
Maddie Butler, The Parenthood: 43:17
I think just in terms of how the market's played out, because it's been this one size fits all solution and it just doesn't work in regional, rural and remote areas. And we say, with the childcare subsidy, which has worked in metropolitan areas, it's because that is a demand side funding model. It just doesn't work in these smaller communities, where there's less demand, the demand is still completely valid. So that's why another solution we also think should be considered is supply side funding to ensure that services have sustainable ongoing funding that isn't dependent on the number of children that comes through, while we're calling for the government to adopt a market stewardship role and really bring them in sustainable solutions. There are so many families who are suffering right now, and so we'd love to see interim measures as well to really provide some relief immediately, and that could be setting up more incentives, doing mobile play groups, even doing mobile early learning services. We've heard from over 150 families. The situation is dire right now and they need support.
Jackie Elliott: 44:33
And that's just 150 families. I'm sure there's hundreds, if not thousands more out there in the same boat.
Kirsten Diprose: 44:40
Absolutely. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a much needed change, but we'll leave you with some advice from Tara about what you can do now.
Tara Rich: 44:49
If you're a mum trying to navigate, care for a child with a health condition and is a mum wanting or needing a career change, the first thing you need to do is get off the Facebook chat groups, because I think I found when I was so desperate to seek validation and support that Finn's health conditions were real and serious and that I felt like no one else really understood because no one else had a kid who was the same. And so I just think Facebook it's really dangerous because people will accuse you of not baby-led weaning or they are baby-led weaning or someone gave them the wrong food. I just think, unless it's going to be helpful and supportive, it's not actually a great place for you to go to. So divert the Facebook chat groups, the mum help groups, and go straight to Allergy and Anaphylaxis Australia. They have some incredible resources about if you've got a child who's getting ready for kindergarten or school. They have Finn's not old enough yet, but they do summer camps for kids with allergies, so every single food condition can be catered to and they can do a high ropes course and things. I just think it's definitely getting better and daycare centres are more educated on it as well. But yeah, definitely that. And then at the real children's hospital there's a clinic called the Max Allergy Clinic. They're incredible.
Tara Rich: 46:08
And then I don't know, advice for mumās considering career change. I think - just do it. If life's really challenging and there's something you want to pursue, you'll never know unless you give it a try so do it. And I know the idea of studying for four years seems like a long time, but life ticks away anyway, so the time is going to pass anyway. So if you have a real interest, just go for it and pursue your dreams and figure out parenthood as you go and make sure you have some great friends you can have a laugh with at the end of the day. If your kids have trashed the house or ended up in a big pool of mud in the garden while you've been on the phone thinking that they're fine, yeah, I think just it's all the good and bad stuff rolls into it and it's life at the end of the day.
Kirsten Diprose: 46:57
And that's it for us here at Ducks on the Pond. Thanks so much for listening.
Jackie Elliott: 47:01
And thanks again to our guests today Tara Rich and Maddie Butler. If you'd like to read more about the report Tueasless, you can find it online at theparenthoodorgau. Forward slash Choiceless.
Kirsten Diprose: 47:13
This podcast is brought to you by the Rural Podcast in Co Remember. If you'd like to sponsor an episode, you can. It's a great way to get your brand out there. We love to support other rural women. Now let's meet the sponsor of this episode, Susan Davies, founder of GapAdvisors.
Susan Davies: 47:32
So, Gap Advisors, we are all about the financial and commercial side of small business. So everything from what's typically classed as boring stuff of your bookkeeping GST, ato compliance, that sort of things through to what I deem to be the fun stuff of dashboards, using data out of your business for to make decisions budgeting and cash flow, risk assessments, mitigation all that fun things.
Kirsten Diprose: 48:00
I know it's a bit of a joke that it's boring and whatever, but you obviously don't find it boring. You obviously love it. Why isn't it boring? I mean, we kind of know why it's important, but how can you make it more exciting as a business owner yourself?
Susan Davies: 48:18
Yeah, in terms of the data entry side, I'm also the automation to try, and so you don't have to do that data entry repetitious sort of thing. What I like is I'm able to use that information and pull out the data, get the insights out of that and then use that information to actually make decisions. So these are decisions to grow your business. So it could be anything from looking at your employee productivity, your charge out rates, all of that sort of stuff, things that are actually going to make a meaningful impact for your business to go forward.
Kirsten Diprose: 48:50
Now my favourite question to ask a sponsor is what's your favourite business advice that you've ever been given?
Susan Davies: 48:59
Probably a really simple thing and it's probably going to sound really silly, but ask for help and I know that it's not always easy, particularly in rural areas particularly in person assistance, and I think these days technology has made it so much easier to get help virtually. But asking for help we don't know what we don't know. And when you start a small business because you're technically good at something and then all of a sudden you're wearing all of the hats marketing, finance, legal sales you're wearing every hat and then not always just your strengths. So ask for help so that you actually can understand what you're doing and learn.
Kirsten Diprose: 49:39
Can I share a secret with you that will horrify you, that I was operating as a business for a couple of months without being registered, Like I didn't realise that I needed to be registered. I had an ABN and everything, so it was all legal in that sense, but I hadn't actually registered the business because I didn't know to.
Susan Davies: 49:59
Exactly, and it's the little things you don't know, what you don't know. So it's having that person or those people around you that you can ask for help and ask for those directions of what you actually need to do. It's so important what kind of programs do you work with?
Susan Davies: 50:14
I work with all sorts of programs. I love technology and the difference, so I'm a partner with Xero, QuickBooks and Myub of the main accounting packages, but I also work with programs like ServiceMate, anything that any of my clients are using. I like to have a bit of a look at and have a play with and see what we can learn and what information we can pull out of the system Because, like I say, it's not just your financial information you want out of it, it's all that other information around your customers and what's actually happening.
Kirsten Diprose: 50:49
Yeah, Now you're a rural woman yourself. Where do you live and what's it like and I suppose, how does that help you in your business?
Susan Davies: 50:58
I have a little bit of a different lifestyle in the fact that I personally live in a caravan, so I don't have a home base, but pretty much spend my time in rural and regional areas, because that's just where I love. At the moment I'm on a cattle station in the middle of the Kimberley, so absolutely remote. The closest grocery store is 120Ks. The closest Woolworths is probably 400Ks away. So very remote, very much relying on technology. But I think it just gives you that insight and that ability to talk to anyone, communicate and be able to actually understand the different businesses and different drivers and how things are happening. Yeah, what kind of businesses do?
Kirsten Diprose: 51:41
you work with.
Susan Davies: 51:43
So most of them can probably fall into a couple of categories. So quite a lot with the trades plumbers, electricians, arborists, all sorts of things like that. And then I've got quite a few allied health clients as well, the NDIS space as well and all that sort of stuff. And then more of the bricks and mortar type of clients, so cafes and restaurants, caterers, that sort of stuff, fantastic quite diverse Quite diverse. Love the diversity of it. It's one of the best parts of it. No two businesses are the same.
Kirsten Diprose: 52:16
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sponsoring an episode of Ducks on the Pond. Where can people find you?
Susan Davies: 52:23
So you can jump onto our website. So gapadvisorscomau, or on any of the socials.
