Opposition spokesperson visits south-west to discuss childcare

Opposition spokesperson for early childhood education Angie Bell visited Warrnambool and Portland on Tuesday to hear the challenges families are facing and said the shortage of childcare places was preventing many parents from working.

Ms Bell, who is visiting the region as part of a wider tour which includes Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, said there was a nationwide shortage of childcare and early education places.

"As we've been travelling around the country we've had educators and parents in tears with the toll it's taking on their family in terms of not being able to meet the cost of their mortgage increases," she said.

"We've seen those cost of living increase and impacting with every rate rise, families are under more and more pressure."

Ms Bell said there were nine million Australians living in a childcare desert which meant "very many" Australians in regional communities couldn't access an early learning place.

She said while there was a spike in regional Victorian births, there weren't the childcare places or staff to cater for increased numbers.

"We're seeing it take its toll on families who are struggling to meet the cost of living demand that they're under at the moment," Ms Bell said.

"The secondary breadwinner could be working however cannot because they cannot access care or early learning for their child or children.

"This is not only affecting services on the ground in regional communities like health and mental health services, but also emergency service workers and GPs who decide they want a sea change and to move to a region but then find out there's no childcare access and so they don't move to the region because of that.

"It's all very difficult when you can't access early learning or childcare."

She said while there were childcare deserts in metro areas, it was "more acute" in regional areas where "very many" professional women in particular wanted to return to work but "simply can't".

Ms Bell said as part of the tour she was conducting roundtable discussions asking for feedback on areas for reform including any red tape and regulation.

"At the moment many, many thousands of families in regional Australia don't have choice because they simply can't access any care whatsoever," she said.

"We're keen to listen to families in terms of what they need and formulate our policy based on that feedback."

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