What’s the difference?
Equity and equality are often used interchangeably but they have very different meanings.
Equality is when everyone receives the same amount or share of something; $10 dollars for each of my three children if I start with $30.
However, equity is when you get what you need to enable a similar outcome and acknowledges that we do not all start at a different point.
In rural areas we need to remind ourselves what equity looks like in action and perhaps how this might affect not only you as an individual but those around us.
Having equitable access to basic services and resources enables everyone to thrive and should be a given in a country such as Australia.
However, when funding models are based on population metrics, our rural areas inevitably miss out.
This style of funding leaves service providers in a high-risk or financially unviable situation, resulting in a narrative that ‘it can’t be done due to cost’.
Childcare, or as correctly termed Early Childhood Education and Care, ECEC, is one such example.
Fifty percent of towns with populations between 500-5000
in the Wimmera do not have a long day care service.
The services we do have are provided by councils or not-forprofit providers, who rely on support funding and resources from other parts of their business to make ends meet.
The demand for ECEC has grown exponentially, with parents having to or choosing to work, along with the overwhelming evidence supporting the positive impact of highquality ECEC for vulnerable children.
Parents, businesses and educators across the Wimmera are unified in the pursuit to increase the accessibility of ECEC, and when I say accessible that is not a 100-kilometre round trip.
With the Productivity Commission releasing its interim
report into ECEC, there is an opportunity to provide feedback and we need to stamp our rural boot and be very clear that we deserve a more equitable funding model – a model that supports every child, family and community to have the same opportunity as other larger towns and cities.
Our wonderful local and national advocates including passionate parents across the Wimmera are speaking up about this very issue, with some even trekking to Canberra to share their first-hand experience.
We would welcome the Productivity Commission to host a hearing in the Wimmera to share our experiences and our solutions for resolving this equity obstacle.