It will come as no surprise to parents living in the Kimberley that a new Productivity Commission Report has shown a severe lack of childcare places for kids living regionally.
In a landmark report released on September 18, the commission makes 56 recommendations to dramatically overhaul the early childhood education and care (ECEC) system with the aim of giving every child access by the end of the decade.
But according to the report, currently in regional and remote Australia, there are many communities with limited or no local services.
In a March hearing as part of the Productivity Commission’s inquiry, Regional Development Australia Kimberley Director Janine Hatch laid bare the lack of services in the Kimberley.
According to RDA figures presented by Ms Hatch, the Kimberley has 24 child care centres, including both for-profit and not-for-profit services, with 900 approved places.
However, the centres are operating at less than 70 per cent capacity with 80 per cent of them having a 12 to 24 month waiting list.
“At current operating levels, the Kimberley has only 0.5 child care places per child compared to the licenced capacity ratio of 0.5 for Perth, and there are currently no approved child care options in the most remote Kimberley Aboriginal communities, leaving approximately 700 children with no access to child care services,” Ms Hatch said.
She said workforce shortages are at the heart of the current crisis in the Kimberley.
“The inability to fill vacancies, cover staff leave, and meet educator to child ratios, have seen centres either reducing services or closing altogether,” Ms Hatch said.
For example the out of school care service in Kununurra had to close it’s doors due to “staffing challenges”, according to a submission to the commission from Binarri-Binyja Yarrawoo Aboriginal Corporation.
Ms Hatch said it was despite a high unemployment rate across the region of 7 per cent with some towns such as Halls Creek reaching up to 30 per cent unemployment, compared to 4.2 per cent for Australia.
“Child care workforce shortages in the Kimberley are driven by high attrition and low completion rates in training, perceived poor wage and conditions, particularly in the context of mining and government sectors, and a lack of affordable housing for staff which is contributing to high costs of living,” Ms Hatch said.
“Across the Kimberley there are many examples of workers finding it challenging or impossible to take on desired amounts of work.”
“Families — we’re well and truly aware of many examples of this — have left the region or are prevented from moving to our region amid our child care crisis, and this is exacerbating the Kimberley’s workforce shortages in all other areas of our economy.”
The report recommended support should be made available to small regional and remote towns, where ECEC services would not be viable without additional funding as a priority and that by 2030, governments should work towards expanding access to ECEC in communities experiencing disadvantage, particularly in remote, regional and rural areas.
