Over the years there have been numerous campaigns hoping to improve facilities in Mudgee for parents with children with little success, but one mum reckons she's the one to do it.
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Karli McKinley moved to Mudgee in 2021 and quickly noticed facilities for parents with babies and young children were lacking in some areas of the CBD. She created a Facebook group called the Parents in Mudgee Project, hoping to bring together other like-minded parents together to share tips, ideas and advocate businesses and council for change.
"When I moved to Mudgee over a year ago it wasn't really an issue for me for because it was during COVID. We couldn't go out with my 10-month-old daughter," Karli said.
"Going out and finding places where I could breastfeed my daughter and change her wasn't an issue. But now I have a three-month-old and now we are going out, it is an issue. Ever since he's been born I've been trying to work out the best place to do all those things.
"I was annoyed about it, and I talked to lots of other mums about it and they were also annoyed about it. I'm the type of person that if something annoys me, I'm going to try and do something about it."
Karli said if money was no issue, her dream would be to get a brand new parents room in the centre of Mudgee, but she concedes that it takes a lot more than money to change things.
"I can suggest these things. But I've got no funding behind me. And I'm a one woman show," she said.
Right now Karli is planning to write 'reviews' of local businesses on their facilities that cater to parents and children. "I understand that not all businesses have own their premises," she said.
"It might not be the businesses' fault they don't have a change table or whatnot. It could be the landlord that needs to do some work."
Karli is in contact with other groups like the Mudgee branch of the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) to work on ideas like stickers that businesses could display in windows to broadcast their facilities like change tables and bathrooms.
This campaign mirrors a similar push in 2014 when parents lobbied Mid-Western Regional Council to find a suitable location for a parents room in the Mudgee CBD, which proved fruitless when council said there were no suitable council-owned locations where such a facility could be built.
Council's general manager Brad Cam said in 2016 a number of options had been considered.
"To provide further options in the form of a dedicated parents' room, council has undertaken significant investigation over the last two years. Unfortunately, no viable option has been found," Mr Cam said at the time.
