Ace Breaking News – In short: The remote town of Mungindi has been without permanent child care or a preschool for a year and is classed as a “childcare desert” Families were forced to drive hundreds of kilometres for care until the Mungindi Community Education Association took action.
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What’s next?
A new preschool and long daycare centre is due to open in 2025, thanks to generous community donations and government grants.
Ashlee Johnston spent months driving 300 kilometres a day to take her daughter Mila to child care, just so she could return to work in northern New South Wales.
Juggling her responsibilities as a mother, farmer, and agronomist, life was a blur of early mornings, late nights, and hours on the road.
“For me, it was a very real conversation that I had to have: Do I keep doing this?” she said.
“The strain that it was putting on both myself and Mila, was it better for me to just be at home and give up my career that I worked very hard for?”
Ms Johnston and her partner Brent were among many young couples who had moved to the remote farming community of Mungindi, on the NSW-Queensland border, and started families.
While the crops have been thriving this season, the community was struggling after becoming yet another remote “childcare desert”.
Preschool pulled, but solution in sight
The Mungindi Community Preschool (MCP) celebrated 50 years of operation in 2023 before closing at the end of the year due to Queensland government funding changes.
A statement released at the time by the MCP Management Committee read: “The Mungindi Community Preschool is one of the few early education centres that will be disadvantaged by this change.”
“Unfortunately, the loss of funding will be financially detrimental and prevent our ongoing operation.
“Despite all our incredible sponsors, fundraising efforts, and amazing contributors who work tirelessly to sustain the Mungindi Community Preschool, without the significant contribution from the Department of Education, it is not feasible to continue operating.”
ABC analysis earlier this year deemed Mungindi among many “childcare deserts” in regional Australia, with four to 12 children per child care place in the Mungindi postcode.
The Mungindi Community Education Association (MCEA) was formed in late 2023 to find a solution.
Fast forward to now, and a new pre-fabricated childcare centre is under construction and will land in Mungindi early next year, to cater for daycare and preschool-aged children.
But it has not been a cheap exercise.
A cause close to everyone’s heart
Moree Plains Shire Council (NSW), Balonne Shire Council (Qld), the NSW government, and federal government have all chipped in with a top-up of funds coming directly from the community to fund the almost $1 million project.
An interim childcare centre has been set up in the town’s hall. (ABC Rural: Lara Webster)normal
MCEA president Lisa Orchin had been “blown away” by people’s generosity.
“It’s the cause that sold it,” she said.
“Child care touches everybody’s hearts. There’s not one community that doesn’t need it.”
And while many regional towns struggle to find enough early childhood educators, Mungindi does not.
The town is just waiting on the new building.
Until then an interim childcare centre has been set up in the town’s hall with staff from the former preschool, and a waiting list for the permanent centre is growing by the week.
“How many places have the staff, the children, but don’t have the bricks and mortar?” Ms Orchin said.
Grain drives tops off cash
The region has just experienced a phenomenal harvest, where donations of grain added more money to the coffers to help fund final touches like landscaping and a playground at the new site.
Ms Orchin said the new centre would help the community thrive by attracting a strong workforce.
“As a farmer in this area, one of the big things we need are employees,” she said.
“We’re handing over to the next generation and with them comes a whole new age of workforce.
Mungindi grain growers just had one of their best harvests in recent memory. (Supplied: Mick Brosnan)normal
“We need to attract vibrant, smart young people into agriculture and the only way we’re going to be able to do that is if we offer childcare facilities where both parents can immerse themselves into our industry of agriculture.”
Ms. Orchin hoped the centre would be open by mid-2025.
“This little community digs deep,” she said.
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