The fresh federal budget means something different for everyone, but for local child care centres, it could be for better or for worse.  

Amongst the biggest announcement to come from the new budget were funding for child care, including Child Care Subsidy rates to increase up to 90 per cent for eligible families earning less than $530,000 annually.  

For families the funding should ease the burden of child care fees, but for services in the Western Plains, a shortage of both childcare staff and centres mean that expansion to care for more children is near impossible.  

Member for Parkes Mark Coulton said that the win for childcare in the budget didn’t so much apply regionally.  

"Funding rebates does nothing to help those families in the Parkes electorate who are unable to return to work because they can’t access childcare in their town. Of the $4.7 billion in childcare measures, there is no money to create one new childcare facility," Mr Coulton said.  

In Bourke, the local child care centre knew their building was due for upgrade well before their roof collapsed, well and truly marking the building's demise.  

It marked even more reason for the centre to be upgraded to have capacity for the growing town's children and better meet the needs of some of the most vulnerable children in the state.  

General Manager of Bourke and District Children's Services Prue Ritchie said that even if the building was stable, it didn't have the capacity for the 75 children who are cared for there throughout the week.  

"There's only one licensed childcare (in Bourke) and we have a waitlist of 20 to 29 depending on the day," Ms Ritchie said.  

"That building really wasn't meeting the needs of the community in terms of childcare places that were required, and also knowing that the abbatoir was going to start and how would we service that growth in demand as well," she said.  

That's why the removal of the Building Better Regions Fund (BBRF) shocked Ms Ritchie and her colleagues, who had spent months preparing an application for funding for the new building.  

After applying in February and making it to the final round, the funding has been pulled away with the cancellation of the program.  

"We worked on that for six months, it was a huge effort to scope that out...now that funding round is gone. That's obviously very disappointing for us," Ms Ritchie said.  

With two new regional infrastructure programs in the works from the Albanese government, it doesn't spell the end for the childcare's upgrade, but perhaps significant delay with applications and selections needing to be redone.  

Mr Coulton said that the delays is extremely disappointing to see.  

“Countless organisations in the Parkes electorate will now have to go back to the drawing board to find another suitable program to apply for. I’m hoping that Labor’s two new regional grants schemes will be equivalent replacements of BBRF, but until we know the details, our regional communities are stuck waiting in limbo,” Mr Coulton said. 

The federal government claims the BBRF was cancelled after it was found to favour electorates with seats held by the National Party.