The reality is that many young families simply do not have the backup of a family network to look after their children. Their own parents may still be in the workforce, or the extended family may be separated by distance.

And, despite welcome advances in paid maternity leave, the time will come around all too quickly when parents will be faced with the often heart-wrenching decision of whom to entrust their most precious possessions – their children.

Childcare is never an easy decision; parents would be only too aware of how vital proper care is in these particularly formative years of development. There are often long waiting lists and when parents do secure a place for their children they often find the cost prohibitive, making it a fine line between the financial benefits of working and paying for childcare. And there's the constant worry of what to do when the child is ill.

So the financial woes of the country's biggest childcare provider, ABC Learning Centres, followed only this week by the collapse of CFK Childcare Centres, will have sent shivers down the spines of parents across the country. While the Federal Government has committed $22 million to ensure ABC centres stay open until December 31, there is no telling what the new year will bring.

The Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, which represents child care staff, has urged parents to maintain their placements until more is known about the situation of individual centres. But the executive vice-president of the union's NSW branch, Rebecca Reilly, has publicly described the situation as "an absolute crisis."

The LHMU wants the federal Government to hold a round-table meeting on childcare, looking specifically at licence granting. There are, of course, who believe that the government had no right to use taxpayers' money to bail-out what was a private enterprise.

Maitland's ballooning population – much of that young families – dictates that the childcare crisis is an issue for all tiers of government. It is a clear case when the welfare of our next generation must come first.