Childcare desert costing Nambucca Valley families a small fortune

Parents in the Nambucca Valley say they are down tens of thousands a year in missed income, due to a lack of access to early childhood education and care.

Regional Development Australia estimates the lost income totals $384 million annually across the Mid North Coast, with 35 percent of childcare demand not being met across the region.

Regional issue: Nambucca Heads mother Holly Quin, who moved to the area three years ago from Sydney’s eastern suburbs, said a lack of childcare access cost her family $40,000 in a 12-month period. 

While she found her two-year-old daughter a spot at a daycare centre in Macksville, the closest care Quin could organise for her younger son was 40 minutes away in Coffs Harbour.

• “It was just going to be too far,” said Quin. “It would have meant driving one kid to Macksville, the other to Coffs.” 

When she returned to work from maternity leave after having her son, Quin - a policy officer with the state government - was forced to reduce her hours to care for him, as did her husband and mother. 

• “It's not just mums who want childcare, it affects every aspect of the economy. Every type of worker that you can imagine is impacted by this.” 

Left with no choice: When Scotts Head’s Lani Greenhalgh left a relationship and moved to the Nambucca Valley with her two-year-old son in late 2023, she contacted centres for four months before eventually securing one day of care per week. 

• “There was only one centre with availability within a one-hour drive of my home,” she said.

She said the situation is “even more dire” for parents trying to return to work with infants. 

• “Right now, there are only eight centre-based childcare spaces in the entire Nambucca Valley for children under two, although around 400 children under two live here,” she said.

Forced into unpaid leave: Father of two David Cross moved his family to Nambucca Heads four years ago, when his daughter was two weeks old.

Cross placed her on a number of childcare waiting lists, but said the family couldn’t access a “meaningful amount of care” until she was two.

• “This meant that my wife and I either took periods of unpaid leave or had to take reduced workloads at work to get by,” he said.
  
  “For a full year we ended up doing 0.6 full time equivalents, and then hired a private nanny for the day where we both were working.”

His son, who has just turned two, recently started daycare. 

• “To get him there, my wife took a year-and-a-half of leave, and a large period of that was unpaid, and then I took six months of leave, and a period of that was unpaid as well,” he said.

Push for local strategy: Parents have been advocating to Nambucca Valley Council in recent months for the development of a local childcare strategy.

While council has not agreed to this step, it has initiated a working group that includes government agencies, childcare providers and local parents. 

The working group will consider the gap in care for children under three and examine the case for an “early childhood hub” in the Nambucca Valley, including potential sites within the Valla Urban Growth Area and in Nambucca Heads.

The potential of council libraries to provide co-working and crèche facilities for working parents with young children will also be explored, as will access to mobile childcare for outlying villages.

The working group will report to council its findings on “options, opportunities and research outcomes”. There is no timeline for this to occur.