Michelle Daw, Yorke Peninsula Country Times

Families, employers, and representatives from 23 council areas gathered in Port Broughton last week to launch a project advocating for fairer access to childcare across the vast federal electorate of Grey.

The Regional Childcare Desert Advocacy Project was launched on Tuesday, March 4, hosted by Barunga West Council, one of the participating councils alongside Copper Coast, Yorke Peninsula, and Wakefield Regional councils.

Grey, the fourth-largest federal electorate by area, covers 92.4 per cent of South Australia.

A 2022 Mitchell Institute study found it had the worst childcare accessibility in the country, with six children competing for every available place.

The project calls on state and federal governments to collaborate on funding models and solutions to increase regional childcare places. It also advocates for revised regulations for Family Day Care to make it a more viable option for providers.

BWC interim chief executive Paul Simpson said regional communities needed fairer access to childcare to enable them to strengthen and grow.

“We are here tonight to ask the state and federal governments to do better,” he said.

“We ask this for ourselves, for our children and for our families. We ask this for our employers and our economy, because we all deserve a fair chance to participate in, to grow and to strengthen our communities.

“We also ask this for our children and our children’s children, who we all hope will have the choice — a genuine choice — to remain in, or return to, the part of SA they grew up in, and be able to live, work and raise a family here.”

Lower Eyre Peninsula council mayor and project spokesperson Jo-Anne Quigley said the project had received phenomenal support from communities within Grey and beyond.

“We have been working in the background with two very important national campaigns, the Minderoo Foundation’s Thrive by Five campaign and advocacy group The Parenthood’s campaign,” she said.

“They too have been very supportive and may well play a larger role in our actions going forward.”

SA Senator Karen Grogan said the Federal Government’s Building Early Education Fund would build childcare and early learning centres where they were needed, not based on electorates.

She said guidelines for the fund were being developed, so she was keen to get input from RCDAP about how the fund should be structured.

In a statement, Copper Coast Council chief executive Dylan Strong said the Copper Coast was fortunate to have existing childcare services, but demand continued to outstrip supply.

“Council works closely with local providers such as the Kadina Child Care Centre to understand their needs, and is regularly advocating for project funding and increased services,” he said

“With ongoing population growth in the region over the next decade, it is important council does all it can to expand the childcare offering on the Copper Coast.

“But council cannot do this alone, which is why it is supportive of the Regional Childcare Desert Advocacy Project’s lobbying efforts.”

Yorke Peninsula Council mayor Darren Braund said the council understood the impact that limited childcare had on families, workforce participation, and regional growth.

In a statement, he said YPC would help other communities tackle the childcare issue by drawing on its experience in securing the Minlaton Family Centre, which opened in mid-2024.

“Having successfully addressed its own long-running childcare shortage, taking the region from just 14 places to over 120, council is in a unique position to share insights and strategies,” Mayor Braund said.

Reality shatters country town dream

Paige Aldenhoven and her partner Daniel Rogers moved to Port Broughton seven years ago to fulfil their dream of living and working in a seaside country town and bringing up a family.

While sharing her story at the launch of the Regional Childcare Desert Advocacy Project last week, Paige said that dream had hit the hard reality of a complete lack of childcare in the town.

She secured three days a week with the local Family Day Care Service when she became pregnant with their first child.

But the service shut down at the end of Paige’s maternity leave and she was forced to resign from her HR job at Barunga Village in Port Broughton.

She later secured a job in HR and childcare for her son, Reggie, in Port Pirie.

For the past four years, Paige and Reggie have had to make a round trip of 160 kilometres a day to and from Port Pirie, up to four days a week.

“It’s been tiring — it’s been a tough slog” she said.

“It hasn’t been the dream of living and working in Port Broughton that I originally had, but unfortunately, without care services in the town, we had no other option.”

Paige said before she secured her job and childcare in Port Pirie, she and Daniel considered leaving Port Broughton so they could both work and access childcare.

She said discussion about the childcare issue tended to focus on economic aspects.

“But I think it’s important we also highlight the emotional and mental toll this has on mums and dads every single day,” she said.

“Let’s be real, it’s hard.

“Without childcare, there are countless mums and dads in regions like ours making that difficult decision on what’s best for their family.

“Either one parent stays at home and families manage during this cost-of-living crisis, giving up a career and superannuation growth.

“Or, worse, we put our sleep-deprived parents on the road with our little ones for (up to) two and a half hours every day to return to work for a little bit of extra money to support the family.

“It’s a bloody tough decision and it’s largely because we don’t have local childcare services.

“This is a beautiful little community with so much potential but we need to take action.

“I’ve lived here for seven years and I’ve been involved in discussions, forums, meetings, surveys but I just haven’t seen the progress quick enough that’s needed to see this region thrive.”

Candidates’ plans

Federal election candidates for Grey, Tom Venning (Liberal Party) and Anita Kuss (Independent), outlined their plans to address the childcare crisis in the electorate at the Regional Childcare Desert Advocacy Project launch.

Mr Venning said South Australia had a large land mass and widely dispersed population, with hundreds of towns with populations between 200 and 2000, which was a challenge for the provision of childcare.

“They (small towns) have a community but they don’t have childcare and this is because the commercial model of childcare does not work and it has not been set up to cater for these smaller towns,” he said.

Mr Venning advocated for more flexible regulations for Family Day Care providers and an expansion of the Rural Care scheme.

He said there were only 70 Rural Care sites in SA, with 13 in Grey, including one at Bute.

But the State Government had capped their numbers so there would not be any more,” he said.

“We need a capital works budget in regional Australia and to do this we need to change the government,” Mr Venning said.

“We need to invest in hotspots prioritised by locations which have the greatest need.

“That’s here in Port Broughton, Crystal Brook, Wilmington, Cummins, Kadina and Tumby Bay.”

Ms Kuss said she had lived experience of the impact of lack of childcare when her children were young and she lived in Wudinna and Crystal Brook.

“My children spent a lot of their early years driving around with me in the car, in between meetings or at work, playing under the desk,” she said.

“It wasn’t good for me, it wasn’t good for the kids, for my marriage or my productivity at work.

“The fact that, more than 20 years later, we’re still here without a resolution I think is just really, really disappointing,” Ms Kuss said.

“And I think it points to the inertia that can happen when, as a safe seat, we get taken for granted and when funding and policy decisions are made
without the community voice by people who don’t live here.

“You all know what’s needed in your own communities.

“What we do need is a government who’s prepared to listen, trust that you have a solution, and empower you to just get on with it.”

This article appeared in Yorke Peninsula Country Times, 12 March 2025.