Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (12:17): I rise to pay tribute to two Mallee community members: Jo Martin, from Wimmera Southern Mallee Development, who leads Thrive by Five; and Wendy Gladman, from Loddon Shire, who runs The Parenthood. I met both in Boort recently. These women and their teams are working to resolve Mallee's childcare deserts. Loddon Shire has 300 children on waitlists. Some of them are developmentally vulnerable. This is exacerbated by towns with no formal child care at all.

Beulah's Heather Sherwell is on maternity leave with two young children. Heather says that, when her leave ends, she is 'screwed' and her family may have to relocate to Melbourne. She says:

We're essentially killing small towns … we've got to choose between, does one of us stop working, does a farm lose an essential worker … or whether we just have to pack up and forget about everything we've built.

Dedicated Rainbow community member, 41-year-old Katherine Durant, and her farmer husband, Ben, have two boys under six years. He works seven days a week up to 16 hours a day, leaving Katherine to sole parent. Katherine says:

You just have to look at the faces of the rural women with small children during cropping and harvest. They are doing the best they can and, like me, probably cry every day in frustration. But we do it. We shut up and we do it.'

The lack of child care in Rainbow and Jeparit leaves nurses and teachers unable to return to work.

Child care at Hopetoun closed due to there being no workforce, and the Yarriambiak shire is working hard to find a solution. Buloke shire say the opening of long day care in Charlton has been positive, but Donald and Birchip could offer eight more childcare places if they had trained staff. Sea Lake is already at capacity after opening in February last year, and it too has a waitlist. Cohuna is another Mallee childcare desert, with 34 children on the family-day-care waitlist, and the Victorian government is yet to fund a 99-place early learning centre. Kerang has 45 children waiting for family day care and a further 85 children under three waiting for the long-day-care centre. Gannawarra needs eight educators just to fill existing places. The Albanese Labor government has to step up and help Mallee families access the child care they deserve.

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