FEATURES What about the 4% of families who are always missing out?

THERE was an advertisement in a newspaper at the weekend. A local member of Parliament selling the message that 96 per cent of families would be better off under her government’s cheaper child care plan.

One has to be pleased that some people will have access to cheaper child care. Less than 30 minutes from the office of that particular MP, the child care desert of Loddon starts - a desert that was identified by young mothers and given prominence in the early months of your local Loddon Herald being first published.

The voice of Loddon families has been projected with an urgency that was given momentum when a report confirmed that locally, we are the only total child care desert in Victoria.

Governments can offer all the rebates and reductions they like, but such policies are of no use if there is no local access.

Again this week, the Loddon Herald has devoted

LEttER to thE EditoR

Article stirs childhood memories

Sir, I read with interest the article on McTaggart’s Garage (Loddon Herald, 1 June).

It brought back many memories of my childhood riding past the garage each day on my way to school and having to call in to pick up something for my father or having a puncture repaired.

I remember well Mr McTaggart and Ted working in the garage.

The garage was always very busy providing a service to the local community. They wore big leather aprons whilst working at the forge. They

LoCAL PERSPECtiVE

considerable space highlighting the challenges, and annoyance of families, waiting for promises to materialise and action to replace words on child care across the Loddon.

They are in the remaining four per cent of people without child care. Their inability to fully participate in the workforce can hamper vocational pathways, earnings and through that the local economy. Governments - whether state or federal - should come up with models for today, not rolling out a centre is another two, three or five years.

The stories of Loddon young mothers are powerful. As I’ve written before, there are already solutions ... they’re still waiting on government action.

- CHRIS EARL

were always cheerful and obliging providing services such as mechanical repairs, tyre repairs and forging.

In the 1940s Korong Vale was a very busy town with a large station, two signal boxes, the coal firing shed, the turntable for steam locomotives, the railway workshops, wheat stacks during harvest and who could forget the large walkway from the station to The Square in the main street.

What a wonderful contribution the railway families and the businesses such as McTaggart’s Garage made to this small community.

RhondaHeather MurphysCreek

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