Tuesday, 14 May 2024

Rolling Hills Pre-school, Mooroolbark

Bridget VALLENCE (Evelyn) (19:16): (655) Affordable and accessible child care remains a significant stress for families across the Yarra Ranges. There is a dire lack of childcare and kinder places close to where people live, and families are forced to wait for years on waiting lists, causing stress and anxiety for parents and particularly having a disproportionate impact on women. For families in Mooroolbark the matter I raise is for the Minister for Children in the other place, and the action I seek is for the government to take all necessary steps to provide more kinder and childcare places at Rolling Hills Pre-school in Mooroolbark, including allocating much-needed funding for infrastructure upgrades so that this can happen.

Communities like Mooroolbark, Lilydale and Montrose are growing, with many young families moving to these areas. The Mitchell Institute’s mapping Australia’s childcare black spots report outlines that these suburbs have twice as many children as available childcare places. Mooroolbark families are cruelly being denied a place for their children at Rolling Hills Pre-school due to insufficient places. Under the requirements of the guidelines of the Department of Education these families should have a priority of access given it is their local kindergarten, but families are contacting me distressed that they have been told there are no available places for them to enrol at Rolling Hills Pre-school, despite it being the closest to their home. Rolling Hills Pre-school in Mooroolbark is highly regarded, offering three- and four-year-old kinder programs and conveniently located close to Rolling Hills Primary School. But the physical constraints of Rolling Hills Pre-school mean that they can only offer 25 places and have been operating at capacity for several years.

I am aware that Yarra Ranges council in its advocacy and budget submissions to the state government has also highlighted the need to develop Rolling Hills Pre-school to ensure it can provide more places for local children, with council estimating that $8.7 million in funding is required to redevelop the Rolling Hills facility to add three new playrooms and offer 33 additional places for local children.

Sadly, the Allan Labor government has failed to adequately invest in childcare facilities and services in my local community. Not only is Victoria the most expensive place in Australia for child care, as confirmed by the Productivity Commission in February this year, Labor has now broken its early childhood promises from the last election. As a result of Labor’s financial mismanagement, their 2024–25 state budget confirms Labor’s promised delivery of 50 new early learning centres will be delayed by five years and the expansion of free kinder for four-year-olds to 30 hours a week has been delayed by four years. Labor has also failed to address the chronic early childhood workforce shortages.

Families should be able to enter their children into their closest preschool, and Mooroolbark families deserve more support, not less, from this government to ensure the necessary steps are taken to upgrade Rolling Hills Pre-school to increase the number of places at Rolling Hills Pre-school in Mooroolbark as a matter of priority.