Australia’s Albanese Government commenced the Commonwealth Prac Payment on July 1 2025 for nursing, midwifery, teaching and social work students.
I hear every day from my members about their experience with placement poverty.
Sebastian Harper, NAPSA
But NAPSA said it had for some time been calling for an alleviation of placement poverty for more health students.
“I hear every day from my members about their experience with placement poverty,” Sebastian told a press conference in Canberra on Tuesday February 10.
He highlighted the story of a JCU student who was driving four hours a day for her placement — from Atherton, in Queensland, to Cairns.
Sebastian said the First Nations woman was the first in her family to finish high school and go to university, but she feared becoming the first to drop out because she couldn’t afford the costs of placement.
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia said it strongly supports NAPSA’s call.
Behind the numbers
On behalf of a coalition called the Health Students Alliance, NAPSA last year launched a National Placement Poverty Survey.
“And … the results of that were a lot more grim than we expected,” Sebastian said.
The data shows 82 percent of health students struggle to pay bills and some 50 percent went hungry on placement.
Sebastian said the students surveyed weren’t just young people out of high school, but mature students, some with children.
The results also show some 53 percent of students had considered leaving their degree due to the financial burden of placements.
We’ll continue our work alongside our colleagues in other degrees to get this over the line.
Sebastian Harper, NAPSA
NAPSA said the stronger Medicare promised at the last election would not, at this rate, have a future health workforce to support it.
Push for an expansion
The push for an expansion of the Commonwealth Prac Payments across the health disciplines was supported by MPs and Senators from across the chamber, Sebastian said.
“We’ll continue our work alongside our colleagues in other degrees to get this over the line.”
In a press release, Senator Pocock and Dr Haines MP said ending placement poverty for the next generation of Australia’s health workforce was within reach, according to costings from the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) they have commissioned.
Dr Haines and Senator Pocock independently commissioned the PBO costings, which show expanding the Commonwealth Prac Payment Scheme to include medical and allied health students would cost AUD290 million over the four years of the forward estimates.
Dr Haines and Senator Pocock are pushing for Commonwealth Prac Payment to be expanded in-line with the recommendations of the Universities Accord Final Report.
The report contains 47 recommendations for Government consideration and aims to create a long-term reform plan for the higher education sector to meet Australia’s future skills needs.
A summary report prepared by the Department of Education outlines themes and issues identified in the Accord Final Report.
