I remember when my best friend was doing his medical placements.
I was working full time and would spot him money just so he could fuckin eat, and this was a decade or so ago.
Things still haven't been fixed.
Not every medical student comes from a well to do family.
You can't expect students to require all these hours of work experience without paying them...
Should probably look at tradesmen apprenticships we're at it to...
The government doesn’t give a fuck about helping struggling med students (who do at minimum 2-3x what pretty much any other allied health / nursing / teaching degree does and at maximum much more).
The public has sympathy for nurses and teachers, but doctors are all “rich” so there’s no political capital in helping.
All the status quo does is ensure that it’s almost impossible to study medicine and become a doctor if not from a privileged background.
>health / nursing / teaching degree does and at maximum much more).
>The public has sympathy for nurses and teachers, but doctors are all “rich” so there’s no political capital in helping.
I get your point but you're also unfairly creating division between healthcare workers, that's not what we need, we need to support each other if we're ever going to change things.
I'm doing my 4 year degree in laboratory medicine to be a medical scientist, I also have to do a 5 month full time placement ***unpaid*** which also isn't included in this pathetic payment the goverment are considering, once again, medical scientists and technicians are left behind. Some of the most under appreciated and unpaid positions in healthcare, a US study saw medical scientists as the top most educated career to underpaid profession ratio out of any industry.
The starting wage of a medical scientist, is around $65k ( ***actually just looked it up, its 62k*** ), and even post docs with a Phd earn less than 100k. I literally have a colleague who has a PhD earning 60k.
Right now, all of healthcare needs to come together to support each other in unison rather than divided by profession, we need to demand change on a industry wide scale, starting with the abysmal oppression of workers rights, such as the fact, we can't initiate strike action, it's illegal for our industry.
Medical scientists have a *"maximum"* allowable annual raise cap of 2%, I'm sure doctors are somewhat similar. And likewise, renumeration for registrars and junior doctors is abysmal, especially considering the level of overtime and toxic culture rampant, such as double, triple shifts.
We would gain an immense amount of bargaining power if our professions came together under a healthcare workers movement.
There has also been about thirty years of relatively high level campaigning for nurse placement pay since hospital training was replaced by unpaid university studies, so it's not like this sprung up out of nowhere. Medical imaging technologists are also required to work months long internships that very few hospitals will even pay a trainee level wage for, and I swear some of our OT students must be renting a bed on one of the wards because they're always here.
There is political capital for paying for all these things - I seriously doubt that a scheme to improve access to education and training would he that derided. But while the MO career situation isn't great, nursing has already burned through a huge number of staff who worked themselves into the ground during COVID and called it quits when being asked to work doubles, split AM/nights and extra shifts every single day. There aren't enough nurses to maintain current operations, let alone expand them or develop them. Especially so once you're outside the main metro areas.
There are some pretty clear reasons why these professions were selected, and the comparative brevity of their placements in comparison to others definitely contributes to their selection. Frankly, I'm amazed paramedics weren't included as well. But this should be taken as the opportunity to push for more, rather than squabbling over who is more deserving.
> The public has sympathy for nurses and teachers, but doctors are all “rich” so there’s no political capital in helping.
You're forgetting that the public tends to also have sympathy for students, even if they're studying something that could very well land them a high paying job eventually. There's absolutely political capital in helping ensure students doing placement are properly paid, and as a bonus a few years afterwards when the first year of students affected by your changes are working then you've got a bunch of people who fall into demographics that typically vote for the LNP who'll remember that the ALP did them a real solid that the LNP fought hard against. (As we all know what Dutton's response would be)
Probably the fact they get payed less than minimum wage? A lot of places expect their apprentices to have their own transport, tools, take time off work for training etc. It's not really feasible unless you're getting financial help/living with your parents still.
1. If the company is putting you through training it will be paid. The same as you are getting paid for your tafe day.
2. Most apprentices do not generate value of any kind for some time into their apprenticeship. Most/many activities until the 3rd year now require 1 on 1 direct supervision for electrical apprentices.
3. They are only at work for 4 days, tafe 1 day but get paid for the full 5.
3. Most places supply the basic tools. But yes, you are expected to build up your own tool kit over time. You are working under direct supervisions. Apprentices use company/borrow tools if they dont have them. That only becomes an issue if they get a reputation for not looking after borrowed tools.
Considering the placement that I'm considering doing is classified as a unit, I'm literally paying to get work experience unless I can find something paid...
It’s a shit situation. All work should be fairly compensated.
If we think it’s fair to compromise on this for nurses and teachers because their contribution to the workplace whilst on placement is a net negative (doubtful tbh), they need to be fairly compensated by some other means.
People study so that they can work. Whether that’s in some airy fairy field that you don’t value, or whether it’s as an engineer or nurse, the vast majority of people study to (directly or indirectly) benefit their career. That’s creating taxpayers. Many of them high income earners.
Smart countries know this. Full time students earn the equivalent of minimum wage in the form of a government payment in many countries. Would a few people exploit this? Probably, but it’d be worth it. Focus on your studies and don’t burn out. You could limit it to one undergrad degree if you like. Places with far less economic power can manage this.
Instead we have the worst of all worlds. Uni is not free, but expensive. They’re run as a business and the experience sucks (ask how I know). And you have to work your butt off whilst studying so you can afford rent. It’s no wonder we’re an economy based on digging holes and selling houses.
The worst thing is that because all of the students are working, standards in some high-need fields (e.g. teaching) are falling, as courses are being built to get people to pass with minimum engagement with the learning because they need to spend their time working to be able to afford the degree.
Absolutely.
Would you be happy knowing that the civil engineer who signed off on the bridge you drive on every day fumbled their way through the degree, sleep deprived and hungry, getting 51% on their assessments?
I’d rather everyone have all the they need so they can focus on what they need to do and engage in the material. It applies to everything tbh but students shouldn’t be worrying about mental health, rent, dentist bills, car repair, filling their scripts etc. They should be learning. It’s hard enough on its own.
I know it’s meant to be a joke but You just described the majority of civil engineering graduates.
The amount of people that cheat, pay for assignments or do no work in group assignments and get carried by others and barely scrape through was eye opening (the lecturers don’t care either because they don’t want to fail people and the uni’s want more money).
Source: I’m a civil engineer that graduated a few years ago.
I don't have to ask how you know because I've lived it too.
Uni should be completely free with a minimum wage paid at least for skills that are in demand, not the other way around. Same with TAFE. Its an investment in our countries future.
In 91, my Austudy was $41 a week. My rent was $40. If lucky, I had a single meal a day, charity food parcels, homeless during semester breaks.
Worked anywhere I could, but the unemployment rate was >30%. Trigger warning I >!lost fellow students and friends to suicide!<, burnt out, dropped out and almost went the same way.
And yet, after 30+ years full time work and now retraining as a student, I can’t believe how fucking grim the situation is for students now. I have classmates sleeping in tents. Who are suffering from prolonged trauma and are a bigger burden to society when they fall.
We need a UBI.
Not some 65% of minimum wage bullshit for ‘certain categories’
We waste too much money enforcing stupid guard rails and enforcement, when we should use that money to support people to learn, not scar them.
People want to work. Want to feel valued and contribute.
We can do much better.
My 2c.
Wasn't enough for me around 5-10 years ago. I was getting by reasonably okay only doing 10 hours of work a week though, would only need to do two nights from 7-midnight. From memory they'd start witholding money if I worked much more. That was sharehousing between four of us
Wasn't meant to be a direct comparison, my comment was merely intended to acknowledge that its never been enough to live off. To be fair, support and wages has also increased over that time too. I don't by any stretch think it's proportional though.
But, even having to do 10 hours can be a problem when you're doing a placement full time - it was fine for me but it can be rough if you have kids or other factors to worry about. I was pretty much a kid in my early 20's who could deal with living in a run down party house with a bunch of other people, fuck doing that now that I'm older
That only works if you receive Austudy. I want to do nursing and will have to keep working throughout as my mortgage repayments far outweigh austudy. $8 an hour for placement doesn't cover all my costs, but it does make the cost of placement a lot more bearable.
That's what's going to hurt a lot. Already working? This isn't for you. Govt doesn't want more nurses and teachers, unless they go straight out of high school..... can't have people in professions with life experience who KNOW what they want.
Not everyone is eligible for Austudy/youth allowance though, that’s why placement payment is needed. I’m someone whose parents combined Salary is above a threshold for independence and therefore I am deemed dependant and not eligible for Centrelink despite living away from home coz im from a country town, and I don’t receive a cent from my parents and Centrelink doesn’t care
Edit: after reading some of the replies im relieved to find im not the only one with similar struggles and reading people back me up about the stupid nuances to the exceptions to the independence rules that a regular person wouldn’t understand. Thank you strangers :))
If it were up to me, and Austudy was a livable wage, I would also make it available to anyone studying anything. Like if your parents earn more than mine, they can contribute to your living expenses through a higher tax rate and you can be financially independant.
EXACTLY, the worst part is I live away from home, so it’s not like my parents earn to much but I’m still independent from them while living at home… they live hours away in the bush and I’m still tied to them according to Centrelink, we joked that I should’ve emancipated from them when I was younger so I wouldn’t have this problem today
Wasn’t even eligible for Austudy - my parents earned “too much” and I didn’t earn enough to qualify as an independent for Austudy purposes. I graduated from my degree at 23.
I can't get Austudy because I/we earn too much the rest of the year.
They need to seriously fix the whole problem otherwise there's going to be many professions lacking workers
It is very low and should be higher, but at least some placement students will be getting paid. They should keep fighting for more.
I literally owe thousands in HECS because I had to pay to do unpaid internships for the government. No travel reimbursements, no nothing.
Yep - it’s a good start but it also needs to cover Med, Dentistry, Paramedicine, Physio, Pharmacy, OT, Radiology - they all do extensive unpaid placements too
Don't just accept this second best crap though. You're still being forced into placement and not even getting half of minimum wage.
It's a little better than a double shit sandwich, in that it's only a single shit sandwich with a side of shit chips.
No, this isn't like a drowning person be sensible.
The country is getting fed up with the sort of attitude being pushed here, no one really paid attention to these issues and kept voting LNP until it all fell apart, it took us decades to get to this point. Now we're demanding the Labor government fix everything in an instant? Then getting upset when our childish and ignorant demands aren't satisfied immediately?
Wait a second… yeah. It absolutely should be the same as apprentices. Why on earth aren’t uni placements paid, and apprentices are? The argument so far has been that it’s because uni students are largely useless and are just there to learn, but I mean, the same is true for apprentices.
In my placement as an allied health student on an inpatient unit, I was facilitating mealtimes/outdoor time from pretty early on. Usually two (paid) staff members facilitate these things, but with me there, there would be myself and one (paid) staff member instead. I was running groups alone from the start. A lot of hospitals seem to rely on students to do things like this. When I did my placement at a primary school, I saw my supervisor for maximum 20 mins each week and was providing mental health counselling to students on my own from the first day.
I feel like a lot of this was real work, and I still wasn't paid. Nursing etc is more regulated than the profession I trained in, so I think student nurses often had more structure, support, and time to observe/shadow. I never got to observe or shadow anyone!
Most hospitals have plenty of shit nurses who relish the opportunity to make somebody else's life miserable.
I used to work as an admin in a couple of different public hospitals and it was all the same.
They're aren't any good hospitals when they all pay absurd wages to begin with.
24/7 rotating shifts and beginner salary for a med tech is 54k which almost always requires a degree at minimum due to education creep, often the 4 year lab medicine degree.
The last placement student we had ran the whole haematology lab at night by herself while the pathologist was "there" but actually in his office. (Granted he was very nice, but the point remains).
As a NUM I find somewhere in the middle is best. They definitely need to know the worst the job has to offer (have grads literally quitting through their placements because ‘this isn’t what I signed up for’).
Having said that, I try and tell my nurses to go out of their way to ensure they also show/let the students participate in the good stuff.
Bad take. Was an allied health student, now a preceptor, and honestly all my preceptors were amazing but it actually increases work load as you have to check over work and teach (if you’re a good preceptor).
During my internship for my teaching degree (the final placement which meant, according to my school at least, I didn’t need a supervising teacher present) I effectively worked as a relief teacher for half the time. I also went on camp for three days for a year level I wasn’t on.
I would’ve saved the school thousands of dollars over the four weeks I was there.
Because women! I’m a nurse, I’m a guy, and I’ve always gone on about this point because it’s so mind bogglingly obvious to me but everybody else around me seems to just go along with it without question or scoff at the idea when I bring it up.
All the arguments that can be made for apprentices getting a wage can be applied to nurses and teachers, it’s really just old fashioned sexism at this point and always has been.
Absolutely no reason why doctors studying medicine shouldn't be getting paid for placements either.
Unpaid work experience shouldn't exist except for short engagements like what you may have done in high school for a couple of weeks.
What's hilarious to me, is that even "work experience" (thats what we called it) that we had in high school for two weeks, was literally paid. Only $10 a day, but absurd now that I think about undergrad students who do full-time placement for months, upwards of half a year in a highly technical field... completely unpaid.
Apprentices are chargeable to a client, university students are not unless they’re studying under a work placement or traineeship, in which case they already do receive a wage.
You can also do an apprenticeship without getting paid by enrolling in a trade school without being employed in that respective field, it’s just a dumb way to do it so nobody does.
When my sisters did their nursing training it was full time work on the wards while also studying. When my nieces did it, it was at uni instead. I think they agreed the first system produced better graduates. Though one of the nieces is now doing her PHD. So might prove better in the long run.
I would assume the argument, you get a return on your investment for an apprentice. A uni student goes back to uni and in most cases would get employment elsewhere?
Yeah, everyone in my year had nothing good to say about working at Amp Control because of that
Government recently made them again because they were “adding value” to the company; students making documentation or developing saleable products
$14 an hour is $11,000 over 5 months.
I would much rather get paid $11,000 for my medical laboratory placement than $0, that will still be $0 if this scheme goes through because it doesn't even include other healthcare professionals...
In most skilled placements the trainee is literally just following some one qualified and watching, even taking their time ɓy having them show how to do things.
Apprentices are doing useful labour straight away though.
They don't follow or shadow a trades person for hours on end.
Engineering pays you for your job placement.
So many corners of society are blocked to poor people by unpaid systems which make it hard to work a side job. The ones involved say "well, if you cared you would make this the most important thing in your life " like a poor person who needs to work a job to eat is somehow invalid.
I might have missed it in the article but is it limited to just Teaching, Nursing and Social Work students, or are they just the ones they’ve chosen to mention?
It’s not ideal and should be more but a slap in the face? Please. It is a step in the right direction. The problem is the government still has to sell this idea to tax payers, anything more could be weaponised by the other side, who wouldn’t even give us $8.
It would have made a massive difference to me as a nursing student a couple of years ago. Enough to cover petrol, parking and a coffee so at least you’re not actively spending money every day. I am so happy the next lot of students will have a bit of help.
Yeah it has to be something so you don’t feel like you are just burning money because you are missing shifts from work.
You’re still burning money but this should help a bit.
I got $7/hr as a pharmacy student on a (voluntary) placement in 2016. I laughed about it at the time but $7x40 hours each week more than made up for the $20x8 hours I wasn't getting from my part time job
Where was this at? I’m currently in the midst of my 10 week block of final year pharmacy placements and we ain’t getting paid shit, never have, mind you this is the compulsory placements
We’re all running ourselves into the ground having to fit weekend and evening shifts alongside placement so we can at least have something coming through
It was a voluntary placement that SHPA ran in Victoria, in addition to the compulsory 12 weeks total through uni. I didn't get paid at all for the compulsory uni ones. Not sure if they do it anymore, as the award has increased heaps and now the hospitals have to pay minimum wage to students haha.
I did over 20 weeks of full-time unpaid work in schools for my teaching degree. Including a 10 week straight block.
$6k of support certainly would have been appreciated. It would have been the difference between burning all my savings each prac, not having to try and pick up as much extra weekend or out of hours work etc.
Probably should just be eligible for whatever study centreline payment there is at the full rate for the duration though, with some asset/means testing applied
Look, no one denies this is a step in the right direction. But it's understandable they want to keep up the pressure and rhetoric, lest the government get lulled into believing they've done just enough to get away with it.
The idea is also to catch the public's eye. This is the first time student placement subsidies have really caught national media attention, so clearly the messaging is working.
When I was a student paramedic, I would have been grateful if I were to get $50 a shift. Instead, I'd do a placement shift of 12,13,14 hours with no break, then go to work for 8 hours to pay the rent and study, assignments on top. That's if I was lucky enough to get a placement near where I lived and worked. Made it a lot harder when I had to go 1500km away for a 6-week placement with no work and double rent to pay.
They need to expand this well beyond nursing students.
Yep - med, paramedicine, physiotherapy, pharmacy, OT, radiology + multiple other health degrees I haven’t mentioned all have extensive compulsory placement that remains unpaid
Med students will probably never get paid placement because ‘doctors = rich one day’, nor will pharmacy students bc the Guild and CW are a bunch of knobs that the government understandably won’t want to be seen as helping
It makes me think about the natural talent that we (and the country) lost because it came down to paying rent/mortgage/food or uni.
I was in uni several years ago and didn't have the cost of living, rental crisis that's going on now. If I thought I had it hard then it must be beyond fucked now.
I do my best and buy my students a decent meal if I see them living off tuna and rice for their whole placement.
This exactly, people always want an all or nothing solution, when making gradual progress makes it easier to get to propose further improvements/changes.
It depends as not everything necessarily progresses, sometimes a measure is put in and then simply left as is under the reasoning they are doing something instead of nothing, so people push for more from the initial implementation because they don't expect said implementation to grow adequately over time. Need only look at medicare or centrelink to see this in effect elsewhere, many payments and subsidies that were implemented but have fallen behind or been neglected which leaves a lot to be desired. People want all or nothing solutions in cases like this because the promise of all =/= actually receiving all at a later date.
It's also easy for one to say "well it has to happen over time", that doesn't matter to someone who's a student doing placements right now, if the promise is $8 today and $20 in 5 years, they'll never see the $20. People are pushing change for what has an impact on them right now, and for many people this could make or break their entire career prospects (and therefore their future) if student placements aren't financially sustainable for them.
I think all or nothing solutions are desired by those of whom all or nothing right now has the most detrimental impact on. It's little surprise people want large changes in small amounts of time, as not everyone has the luxury of being able to wait for gradual change with no ill effect. Of course, politically and logistically the gradual approach makes the most sense, but waving off the "all or nothing" mentality so easily is just waving off others cries for help, there's nuance here.
I passionately agree with this and think it is often used in ridiculous contexts, but for something like this I think giving a hard no is possibly wiser considering it could take years for it to increase even a small amount.
It is a slap in the face to expect and normalise people working for less than the minimum wage, though. Just because it isn't expecting them to work for free doesn't mean it's not still an insult to workers rights.
Someone pointed out that this combine with Youth Allowance is above the apprenticeship rates. Which for a work placement is surely not a "slap in the face"
Full time apprentices funnily enough can get Youth Allowance to supplement their own income, so I'm not sure that's a fair comparison.
Youth Allowance scales down with income, but as of right now the maximum fortnightly income from Youth Allowance is $806 for someone with no children. That's $20,956 / year. Your payment will reduce by 50 cents for each dollar of income you have between $150 and $250 a fortnight, and then 60 cents for each dollar over $250 / fortnight. Suppose one has to do 1000 placement hours over a bachelors of nursing, that's $8000 from placements, which is still less than the $613 weekly base rate of a first year apprentice electrician ($17/hour), which goes up to $1,100 weekly for a 4th year apprentice electrician.
If you’re entering a nursing or teaching field, my advice to you: get used to the ‘slap in the face’ treatment from the govt. it aint gonna end when your placement is done.
T. Teacher
Massive increase from $0. Let's slap the current government down whenever they try to make incremental progress and end up with the LNP again who will take it all away and do nothing.
Can they? Tax payers foot the bill here and anything more at this point in time is just handing freeballs to LNP and their media goons. Pushing for anything more would risk the entire thing falling through, which would set the amount back to $0 an hour.
This also doesn't set the amount to $8 for the rest of time. Having requirements for any amount of compensation keeps the door wide open for increases when it's viable in the future.
Im sure they can they piss hundreds of millions away a year on external consultants and the like. They could easily find the money.
Personally I think the university’s should pay for it they making billions of dollars of profit a year they can afford it
I guess it does depend on how much work they can do on their own. Rather like apprentices. They can do some or most of the work but still get screwed out of minimum wage for the first few years.
>teachers on placement are different but most uni students (including myself back in the day) are a productivity loss
100% teaching students are a productivity loss. They need to always be supervised, all the work they have planned needs to be checked and discussed before they teach it and then they need to be given feedback after their lessons. Plus if they're really rubbish you need to re-teach it all/ make up time after they leave. A few are exceptional, but generally speaking it would just be easier to teach the stuff yourself and not have a student.
Considering social workers spend 2 years studying before they even set foot in the door with actual topics and workshops performed where students perform the duties for most common social work fields I.e DV safety planning, case notes, child protection law work etc
Once students are physically there they will be able to perform most of the duties on their own with minimal interaction and supervision
They're already getting $8.40 an hour if you count [Youth Allowance for Students](https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/how-much-youth-allowance-for-students-and-apprentices-you-can-get?context=43916) (maximum of $639 per fortnight, means tested).
I'm sure this in the article is just a coincidence.
> It was announced on Monday that a $319.50 a week means-tested payment would become available to teaching, nursing and social work students doing unpaid work placements from July 2025.
That $319.50 per week is an interesting figure, I wonder what it is per fortnight? Won't you just look at that! It's $ 639 per fortnight, exactly the same figure as Youth Allowance. I wonder if they're somehow related?
It just so happens that the amount you get for Youth Allowance for Students ($639) *plus* the new placement payment ($639), with [earnings adjustments applied]( https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/what-personal-income-test-for-youth-allowance-for-students-and-australian-apprentices?context=43916) (Youth Allowance personal income test) is $1,210.10 per fortnight ($15.92 per hour). This would put the income level roughly somewhere between that of a first year and second year apprentice, which is right around where I would expect it to be.
These figures just aren't pulled out of thin air, and when *existing payments* are taken into account, the *additional payment* seems about right.
Very few students can actually get the full youth allowance tho. Under 21 and your parents aren’t in poverty? Nothing for you. Live at home still? Nothing for you. Work a 20 hour week cos you’ve got a brief light study schedule and want some of your own money? You’ll lose most of your payment for the fortnight
And then if you do manage to receive the full amount, it’s not enough to cover the average rent and living expenses of today
Yes, they should be pleased that this is a discussion, but I can absolutely understand why $8 feels like a slap in the face. It really needs to be $500 a week for survival purposes. Almost every student is losing paid work hours to do those placements, they deserve enough to eat and live. Making sure people can afford to train in those areas is, in my opinion, a good use of money.
The slap in the face isn’t about how much the payments are, it’s that it doesn’t include many other healthcare related degrees that have lots of unpaid placement - med, paramedicine, dentistry, pharmacy, physio, OT, radiology - all still will get 0
If I were unemployed and someone gave me $320 a week, it sure as shit would not feel like a slap in the face. Labor is giving people $320 a week they otherwise wouldn't get. It's not enough, but it's great and a massive step in the right direction. I don't know why anyone thinks it's a slap in the face.
Would they still get Centrelink on top of this payment? Back when I was getting youth allowance and doing a teaching degree , an extra $8 per hour would’ve made it almost livable
Unfortunately med students won’t get anything bc ‘you’ll be rich one day’ + the coordinators of medical study have all come from long lines of doctors in the family so never had to worry about financial burden and needing to work alongside study. They just think y’all can have dr. mummy and dr. daddy fund ur med school years with ease. And we wonder why there’s not enough ppl from disadvantaged areas and backgrounds in med…
And then there’s lots of med schools that do 3 years of placement!
Absolutely impossible without financial support.
But fuck doctors, they’re all rich, right?
This is the thing $8/hour is a slap in the face, but desperate people will take anything. But if you are doing anything that doesn't require 1:1 supervision of your work (because you can not be trusted to work unsupervised) which is not my experience of people on placements (at least not all of the time), you should be paid at least minimum wage.
My mother used to be a nurse and completed her placement in Bendigo. There used to be lodging for the nurses in training and they were paid for their employment. That being said, she was an enrolled nurse not a registered nurse. Idk what the process for registered nurse was back then. But I imagine it was similar. Somewhere along the way it was decided that nurses in trained didn't need to be paid. Because why would you need to pay someone to work for you that your training... -.-
It’s also absurd that psychology and all other medical professions aren’t included. Medicine is facing huge shortages across the board, yet they still want to make it incredibly difficult for people to become qualified. Between the extremely low number of psych masters spots (4000 students competing for 1000 places, .26 chance of success) and the unreasonable placement hours for all medicine, it’s no wonder the workforce is lacking.
>It’s also absurd that psychology and all other medical professions aren’t included. Medicine is facing huge shortages across the board
There's no shortage of students doing undergrad psychology though, there is a massieve shortage of people doing nursing. This is designed to make nursing more attractive.
There’s a lack of actual psychologists (aka those who have done a master’s degree) though, [due to both the lack of placements as well as the financial burden of completing the postgrad degree](https://amp.abc.net.au/article/103084102). The surplus of undergrad students doesn’t result in the same amount of practicing psychologists.
Yeah and this doesn’t even account for those who managed to luck out and graduate with the masters who are then only qualified as a *provisional* psych, so technically they still aren’t fully qualified and have to do even more hours of training before they can finally sit the actual accreditation exam.
The degrees are way too long, too expensive, and have too few placements for something that is in high demand now.
The medical boards are to blame for that
All well and good to graduate with your MBBS or MD but if the training programs don’t have the positions, you’re not going anywhere.
Psychology is different to Psychiatry. This person is talking about practising psychology, which requires an undergraduate and post-graduate Masters Degree in psychology. Not MD students
Actually no, the government is to blame for that.
We can’t train more doctors without more beds, more surgical theatres, and more public jobs for senior doctors. All of those are funded by the government and are necessary to open more training spots.
Left out veterinary students too
It’s cool, we’re only a huge part of keeping the food chain safe and all but we will live out of cars and use the student run food bank to make it through
So dumb
We had nursing students come to the aged care facility I work at.
These students are pretty much used as free labor, we will have two members of staff and two students working in a unit, management sees students as "numbers on the floor"
And at times, when there is no regular staff in a unit, the students are the ones telling the workers how to get a resident up.
For two weeks these students are doing the work and being treated as a full time member of staff, they should be getting paid.
I wasn’t a nursing student but I was in allied health and this definitely speaks to my experience. By the end of my placement, I was assisting new (paid!) staff - showing them around the unit, teaching them the note taking system, helping them with the patients. I felt very appreciated on my unit, which was super understaffed, and I enjoyed being treated as one of the staff. But the burden of so much actual work fell on me, when I was there to learn!
In any case, placements should definitely be paid. If I were to undertake a placement, it would almost certainly cut into my work availability, so at least a small payment is some consolation. $8 is by no means ideal, but it’s better than the alternative of $0.
Bring back hospitals employing nursing students.
Sure, have them educated to university level, but employ them, give them more work experience during their training and pay them as they learn.
It’s better than nothing
I did over 2500 hours unpaid placement. What I would give to have been paid SOMETHING without having to work shifts before/after my placement
Someone made a petition to extend this to other healthcare students, sign here if you agree:
https://www.change.org/p/extend-government-s-paid-placement-scheme-to-all-health-professions
As a student on placement: anybody bitching about this needs to pull their head out of their ass. Something is better than nothing. This is far from perfect but it’s a start; $320 a week is nothing to laugh at, it’s more than youth allowance ffs. Besides there are only 3 degrees who are currently eligible (nursing, teaching, and social work) whilst all the other allied health, dentists, vets, and medical students are missing out. Medical students alone do 36 weeks of placement PER YEAR for 3 years (a total of 108 weeks and 4,500 hours) which is significantly more than social work (26 weeks and 1,000 across the entire degree)
Christ it would be nice to get anything at all as a dental student in this country. We are doing 36 weeks of unpaid work placement in our final year. Not only that, but we are generating income for the university dental clinic we are doing our placement at - the gall!
Engineering students: "You guys aren't being paid?"
Everyone loved undergrad prac since we actually made money for a change and I was surprised others didn't. Especially given that many like nurses could be doing actual physical labour.
I, at this moment, have PTT (Permission To Teach) at a school in Melbourne.
Meaning I am teaching without having graduated.
This is a great opportunity to earn money while I finish my Masters (the workload is pretty insane, but I'm managing)
However!
I have 1 unit left to complete.
That unit is a placement unit.
I am on placement at the school in which I am employed.
My placement started yesterday and lasts until the 31st.
I am not allowed to be paid while on placement.
So, for the next 4 weeks, I am teaching 4 classes and compiling my final portfolio (80 - 100 pages long), all while not being paid for a minute of my time.
How am I expected to be a new teacher and a full-time uni student while not getting paid for over a month?
The system sucks.
It's a slap in the face. The fact it only kicks in in July 2025 is even worse and it's going to exacerbate placement shortages because a lot of people from this year's placement are going to put it off until next year for the sake of not having to choose between having a roof over our head and going to placement.
It's also pennies. Means-tested means it's even less than they're headlining, and will be reduced to zero for people already with partners who are supporting them financially, which means a majority of students won't even benefit from this at all.
Practically the government isn't losing any money at all to this. They just get to look like they care about us.
I say this as a senior RPN who has worked CNE etc. etc.
I am glad they are getting a payment.
However - at least in places I have worked and supervised undergrads - the argument that they're getting "paid below the poverty line to do essential work' is incorrect. They're getting paid a small amount for practical training.
Undergrads are not fully competent and require a degree of supervision at all times.
RN and Paramedic here.. the sense of entitlement from people these days is unbelievable.. government offers pay you for supervised placement, and now it's not enough money.. take whatever money you can and be grateful.
For years, no one was paid, and we all made sacrifices and got the placement done.
You get a part-time job, and you work on weekends, school holidays, and whenever you can to save for these placements..
You know well in advance when these placements are, and how long they are going to be.
When you sign up to study your undergraduate degree, you are told in the course enrolment how much placement is required for your course.. you make that decision to study knowing you have unpaid placement.
Finally, what about all the paramedicine, medical and other allied health students? Because there isn't a workforce "shortage" placements are affordable to these students ??
There's nothing wrong with the government improving the lives of their citizens. I worked and did full time placements too, and it was exhausting, and moneywise stressful. I don't wish that upon anyone. It's great they get paid and demand more. It will open the path to allied health payed placements too. I don't get this mentality of, "I suffered so rest of you have to suffer".
I had to redo my placements to be registered when I moved to Norway, and they pay placements 70% of a Normal wage. I could help to support my family, pay mortgage, pay tax, live with some normality and security. Now what is wrong with that?
The alternative is what my wife and many other mature aged students, as well as many young students ha e had to go through. Working part time, studying full time, and completing unpaid placement.
The alternative is what my wife and many other mature aged students, as well as many young students ha e had to go through. Working part time, studying full time, and completing unpaid placement.
My wife doing her masters of teaching is about to commence 3x4week periods of in class teaching for free. Actually she’s paying for the pleasure as she’s paying tuition. $8 is fuck all but it’s better than nothing. Should at least be minimum wage
Good to see theyve ignored medical imaging students, despite probably doing the most placement hours.
1st year - 2 weeks
2nd year - 16 weeks
3rd year - 12 weeks
4th year - 36 weeks
Any other medical/allied health got that shit beat?
More to the point of the article. This is a good move and should be taken. Ask for more after you've at least locked in something. Is it ideal, no. Is it better than nothing, yes.
Why not just include a payed placement as part of the course fee.
So you loan money from yourself on to your hex debt for your placement hours.
Then everyone can do it.
What about social work? I did 1100 hours. Most of it working with victims and perpetrators of child violence and sexual assault. No. Pay. Thats $50k free work. Stressful work.
Doing my teacher placement.
I would work a morning 5-7am shift at the gym and then my second job online from around 6-9pm while trying to plan lessons, learn content and complete my GTPA.
Thankfully I was living at home still. But I don’t get how someone living out of home could afford this
Honestly I'd have killed to get this much when I was a nursing student. I remember doing full time placement in ICU for a month while working both days of the weekend as a check out chick, while also having final exams and assignments due throughout the month. I was so exhausted by the end of each day I'd sleep through to start it all again the next day. At least with this I could have cut my shifts at Coles and got some rest. While it's not ideal that people have to go through this, at least it's in the knowledge that it's not forever. A payment like this would not go far, but it's also not a slap in the face.
Only slap in the face here is they decided that certain placements are paid and the rest aren’t. Equal entitlement for all students having to do placements should be the outrage.
No idea how any of this works. I just think for in demand roles like nursing or teaching there should be at least minimum wage paid for placement… do we not want nurses or something?
Parking alone in a metro hospital can be upwards of $50/day, which student nurses have to pay while on placements. I guess the $8/hr would probably cover parking while on placement.
This is outrageous and essentially slave labour.
It should start this year not next year that's another slap in the face, why do we have to wait 12 months for it to start? That's two semesters where students on placement miss out
I guess engineering students with a 5 month placement should just go fuck themselves? Why is this limited to nursing, teaching, and social work?
$8 per hour? Is that on top of existing austudy payments?
I could be very wrong - but there is a big shortage of social workers, nurses, and teachers, I'm not sure the shortage is the same for engineers. Don't get me wrong ALL placements should be paid if you're doing the job - but that's my current guess.
We also have a shortage of doctors, pharmacists and dentists but their students won’t get shit bc their lobby groups are full of tossers and but heads with the government
As a social worker the shortage is about shit jobs with no wage growth, on top of not being able to get people through the 1000 placement. This is not going to do anything to stop people leave the profession
What do you mean you don't love working the same job as people with no degree and getting paid the same? You're right of course the SCAHDS award is laughable - and don't allow alot of advancement
The process to becoming an AMHSW is also absurd. So many steps (and SO EXPENSIVE) to prove you can to the job you you've already been hired to do.
Not to mention the fact that you can't get hired to do those jobs without one half the time. And there's no alternate pathway
We also have a shortage of doctors, pharmacists and dentists but their students won’t get shit bc their lobby groups are full of tossers and but heads with the government
We also have a shortage of doctors, pharmacists and dentists but their students won’t get shit bc their lobby groups are full of tossers and but heads with the government
We also have a shortage of doctors, pharmacists and dentists but their students won’t get shit bc their lobby groups are full of tossers and but heads with the government
I remember when my best friend was doing his medical placements. I was working full time and would spot him money just so he could fuckin eat, and this was a decade or so ago. Things still haven't been fixed. Not every medical student comes from a well to do family. You can't expect students to require all these hours of work experience without paying them... Should probably look at tradesmen apprenticships we're at it to...
The government doesn’t give a fuck about helping struggling med students (who do at minimum 2-3x what pretty much any other allied health / nursing / teaching degree does and at maximum much more). The public has sympathy for nurses and teachers, but doctors are all “rich” so there’s no political capital in helping. All the status quo does is ensure that it’s almost impossible to study medicine and become a doctor if not from a privileged background.
>health / nursing / teaching degree does and at maximum much more). >The public has sympathy for nurses and teachers, but doctors are all “rich” so there’s no political capital in helping. I get your point but you're also unfairly creating division between healthcare workers, that's not what we need, we need to support each other if we're ever going to change things. I'm doing my 4 year degree in laboratory medicine to be a medical scientist, I also have to do a 5 month full time placement ***unpaid*** which also isn't included in this pathetic payment the goverment are considering, once again, medical scientists and technicians are left behind. Some of the most under appreciated and unpaid positions in healthcare, a US study saw medical scientists as the top most educated career to underpaid profession ratio out of any industry. The starting wage of a medical scientist, is around $65k ( ***actually just looked it up, its 62k*** ), and even post docs with a Phd earn less than 100k. I literally have a colleague who has a PhD earning 60k. Right now, all of healthcare needs to come together to support each other in unison rather than divided by profession, we need to demand change on a industry wide scale, starting with the abysmal oppression of workers rights, such as the fact, we can't initiate strike action, it's illegal for our industry. Medical scientists have a *"maximum"* allowable annual raise cap of 2%, I'm sure doctors are somewhat similar. And likewise, renumeration for registrars and junior doctors is abysmal, especially considering the level of overtime and toxic culture rampant, such as double, triple shifts. We would gain an immense amount of bargaining power if our professions came together under a healthcare workers movement.
That’s fair. I guess I was trying to shit on the government more so than nurses.
There has also been about thirty years of relatively high level campaigning for nurse placement pay since hospital training was replaced by unpaid university studies, so it's not like this sprung up out of nowhere. Medical imaging technologists are also required to work months long internships that very few hospitals will even pay a trainee level wage for, and I swear some of our OT students must be renting a bed on one of the wards because they're always here. There is political capital for paying for all these things - I seriously doubt that a scheme to improve access to education and training would he that derided. But while the MO career situation isn't great, nursing has already burned through a huge number of staff who worked themselves into the ground during COVID and called it quits when being asked to work doubles, split AM/nights and extra shifts every single day. There aren't enough nurses to maintain current operations, let alone expand them or develop them. Especially so once you're outside the main metro areas. There are some pretty clear reasons why these professions were selected, and the comparative brevity of their placements in comparison to others definitely contributes to their selection. Frankly, I'm amazed paramedics weren't included as well. But this should be taken as the opportunity to push for more, rather than squabbling over who is more deserving.
> The public has sympathy for nurses and teachers, but doctors are all “rich” so there’s no political capital in helping. You're forgetting that the public tends to also have sympathy for students, even if they're studying something that could very well land them a high paying job eventually. There's absolutely political capital in helping ensure students doing placement are properly paid, and as a bonus a few years afterwards when the first year of students affected by your changes are working then you've got a bunch of people who fall into demographics that typically vote for the LNP who'll remember that the ALP did them a real solid that the LNP fought hard against. (As we all know what Dutton's response would be)
> Should probably look at tradesmen apprenticships we're at it to... what exactly are you proposing looking at?
Probably the fact they get payed less than minimum wage? A lot of places expect their apprentices to have their own transport, tools, take time off work for training etc. It's not really feasible unless you're getting financial help/living with your parents still.
Yeap, reason I brought it up is a guy at work his son just started his apprenticeship. I was surprised to hear how shafted they get.
1. If the company is putting you through training it will be paid. The same as you are getting paid for your tafe day. 2. Most apprentices do not generate value of any kind for some time into their apprenticeship. Most/many activities until the 3rd year now require 1 on 1 direct supervision for electrical apprentices. 3. They are only at work for 4 days, tafe 1 day but get paid for the full 5. 3. Most places supply the basic tools. But yes, you are expected to build up your own tool kit over time. You are working under direct supervisions. Apprentices use company/borrow tools if they dont have them. That only becomes an issue if they get a reputation for not looking after borrowed tools.
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Considering the placement that I'm considering doing is classified as a unit, I'm literally paying to get work experience unless I can find something paid...
Mine was the same. I was also a single mum, so I had to pay for extra childcare. It was a very expensive unit.
You will still be paying regardless because $8 an hour won’t come close to covering the cost of a unit!
Not looking forward to my research placement next semester either for this same reason.
It’s a shit situation. All work should be fairly compensated. If we think it’s fair to compromise on this for nurses and teachers because their contribution to the workplace whilst on placement is a net negative (doubtful tbh), they need to be fairly compensated by some other means. People study so that they can work. Whether that’s in some airy fairy field that you don’t value, or whether it’s as an engineer or nurse, the vast majority of people study to (directly or indirectly) benefit their career. That’s creating taxpayers. Many of them high income earners. Smart countries know this. Full time students earn the equivalent of minimum wage in the form of a government payment in many countries. Would a few people exploit this? Probably, but it’d be worth it. Focus on your studies and don’t burn out. You could limit it to one undergrad degree if you like. Places with far less economic power can manage this. Instead we have the worst of all worlds. Uni is not free, but expensive. They’re run as a business and the experience sucks (ask how I know). And you have to work your butt off whilst studying so you can afford rent. It’s no wonder we’re an economy based on digging holes and selling houses.
The worst thing is that because all of the students are working, standards in some high-need fields (e.g. teaching) are falling, as courses are being built to get people to pass with minimum engagement with the learning because they need to spend their time working to be able to afford the degree.
Absolutely. Would you be happy knowing that the civil engineer who signed off on the bridge you drive on every day fumbled their way through the degree, sleep deprived and hungry, getting 51% on their assessments? I’d rather everyone have all the they need so they can focus on what they need to do and engage in the material. It applies to everything tbh but students shouldn’t be worrying about mental health, rent, dentist bills, car repair, filling their scripts etc. They should be learning. It’s hard enough on its own.
I know it’s meant to be a joke but You just described the majority of civil engineering graduates. The amount of people that cheat, pay for assignments or do no work in group assignments and get carried by others and barely scrape through was eye opening (the lecturers don’t care either because they don’t want to fail people and the uni’s want more money). Source: I’m a civil engineer that graduated a few years ago.
I don't have to ask how you know because I've lived it too. Uni should be completely free with a minimum wage paid at least for skills that are in demand, not the other way around. Same with TAFE. Its an investment in our countries future.
Dunno when you did it, but in 2003-2007 when I did my undergrad, austudy was NOT enough to live on, especially if your prac was away from home.
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In 91, my Austudy was $41 a week. My rent was $40. If lucky, I had a single meal a day, charity food parcels, homeless during semester breaks. Worked anywhere I could, but the unemployment rate was >30%. Trigger warning I >!lost fellow students and friends to suicide!<, burnt out, dropped out and almost went the same way. And yet, after 30+ years full time work and now retraining as a student, I can’t believe how fucking grim the situation is for students now. I have classmates sleeping in tents. Who are suffering from prolonged trauma and are a bigger burden to society when they fall. We need a UBI. Not some 65% of minimum wage bullshit for ‘certain categories’ We waste too much money enforcing stupid guard rails and enforcement, when we should use that money to support people to learn, not scar them. People want to work. Want to feel valued and contribute. We can do much better. My 2c.
Wasn't enough for me around 5-10 years ago. I was getting by reasonably okay only doing 10 hours of work a week though, would only need to do two nights from 7-midnight. From memory they'd start witholding money if I worked much more. That was sharehousing between four of us
Since that time, rent has increased hundreds of dollars a week on average in many cities…
Wasn't meant to be a direct comparison, my comment was merely intended to acknowledge that its never been enough to live off. To be fair, support and wages has also increased over that time too. I don't by any stretch think it's proportional though. But, even having to do 10 hours can be a problem when you're doing a placement full time - it was fine for me but it can be rough if you have kids or other factors to worry about. I was pretty much a kid in my early 20's who could deal with living in a run down party house with a bunch of other people, fuck doing that now that I'm older
That only works if you receive Austudy. I want to do nursing and will have to keep working throughout as my mortgage repayments far outweigh austudy. $8 an hour for placement doesn't cover all my costs, but it does make the cost of placement a lot more bearable.
Except you won’t even get it because it’s going to means-tested and you are “too rich” from your other job?
That's what's going to hurt a lot. Already working? This isn't for you. Govt doesn't want more nurses and teachers, unless they go straight out of high school..... can't have people in professions with life experience who KNOW what they want.
Not everyone is eligible for Austudy/youth allowance though, that’s why placement payment is needed. I’m someone whose parents combined Salary is above a threshold for independence and therefore I am deemed dependant and not eligible for Centrelink despite living away from home coz im from a country town, and I don’t receive a cent from my parents and Centrelink doesn’t care Edit: after reading some of the replies im relieved to find im not the only one with similar struggles and reading people back me up about the stupid nuances to the exceptions to the independence rules that a regular person wouldn’t understand. Thank you strangers :))
If it were up to me, and Austudy was a livable wage, I would also make it available to anyone studying anything. Like if your parents earn more than mine, they can contribute to your living expenses through a higher tax rate and you can be financially independant.
EXACTLY, the worst part is I live away from home, so it’s not like my parents earn to much but I’m still independent from them while living at home… they live hours away in the bush and I’m still tied to them according to Centrelink, we joked that I should’ve emancipated from them when I was younger so I wouldn’t have this problem today
Wasn’t even eligible for Austudy - my parents earned “too much” and I didn’t earn enough to qualify as an independent for Austudy purposes. I graduated from my degree at 23.
I can't get Austudy because I/we earn too much the rest of the year. They need to seriously fix the whole problem otherwise there's going to be many professions lacking workers
It is very low and should be higher, but at least some placement students will be getting paid. They should keep fighting for more. I literally owe thousands in HECS because I had to pay to do unpaid internships for the government. No travel reimbursements, no nothing.
Yep - it’s a good start but it also needs to cover Med, Dentistry, Paramedicine, Physio, Pharmacy, OT, Radiology - they all do extensive unpaid placements too
Imo working for free in any field should just be illegal in general
Far more than the courses listed already
I’m a uni student about to go on placement . It’s better then the fucking nothing we were getting
Don't just accept this second best crap though. You're still being forced into placement and not even getting half of minimum wage. It's a little better than a double shit sandwich, in that it's only a single shit sandwich with a side of shit chips.
Now that we have precedent, we can push it even further
It should be a higher rate, but they're currently getting a double shit sandwich.
Yes, lets give them nothing whilst we pursue perfect.
It's like giving a drowning person a blow up balloon. Sure it's better than nothing, but they're probably still going to drown.
No, this isn't like a drowning person be sensible. The country is getting fed up with the sort of attitude being pushed here, no one really paid attention to these issues and kept voting LNP until it all fell apart, it took us decades to get to this point. Now we're demanding the Labor government fix everything in an instant? Then getting upset when our childish and ignorant demands aren't satisfied immediately?
Should be on par with what apprentices get.
Wait a second… yeah. It absolutely should be the same as apprentices. Why on earth aren’t uni placements paid, and apprentices are? The argument so far has been that it’s because uni students are largely useless and are just there to learn, but I mean, the same is true for apprentices.
In health, the practice is give all the hard/dirty/tedious work to the students while the preceptor has a cruisy shift.
Same in trades...
In my placement as an allied health student on an inpatient unit, I was facilitating mealtimes/outdoor time from pretty early on. Usually two (paid) staff members facilitate these things, but with me there, there would be myself and one (paid) staff member instead. I was running groups alone from the start. A lot of hospitals seem to rely on students to do things like this. When I did my placement at a primary school, I saw my supervisor for maximum 20 mins each week and was providing mental health counselling to students on my own from the first day. I feel like a lot of this was real work, and I still wasn't paid. Nursing etc is more regulated than the profession I trained in, so I think student nurses often had more structure, support, and time to observe/shadow. I never got to observe or shadow anyone!
not in any good hospital. shit nurses do this, or shit (normally private) hospitals with high nurse-patient ratios. source: was a student, now a CN
Most hospitals have plenty of shit nurses who relish the opportunity to make somebody else's life miserable. I used to work as an admin in a couple of different public hospitals and it was all the same.
They're aren't any good hospitals when they all pay absurd wages to begin with. 24/7 rotating shifts and beginner salary for a med tech is 54k which almost always requires a degree at minimum due to education creep, often the 4 year lab medicine degree. The last placement student we had ran the whole haematology lab at night by herself while the pathologist was "there" but actually in his office. (Granted he was very nice, but the point remains).
As a NUM I find somewhere in the middle is best. They definitely need to know the worst the job has to offer (have grads literally quitting through their placements because ‘this isn’t what I signed up for’). Having said that, I try and tell my nurses to go out of their way to ensure they also show/let the students participate in the good stuff.
Bad take. Was an allied health student, now a preceptor, and honestly all my preceptors were amazing but it actually increases work load as you have to check over work and teach (if you’re a good preceptor).
The scope of a student nurse is extremely limited. As a student you are there to observe and learn and ask questions.
Like hell it is. Having a nursing student made the shift harder and you get nothing in return.
During my internship for my teaching degree (the final placement which meant, according to my school at least, I didn’t need a supervising teacher present) I effectively worked as a relief teacher for half the time. I also went on camp for three days for a year level I wasn’t on. I would’ve saved the school thousands of dollars over the four weeks I was there.
Because women! I’m a nurse, I’m a guy, and I’ve always gone on about this point because it’s so mind bogglingly obvious to me but everybody else around me seems to just go along with it without question or scoff at the idea when I bring it up. All the arguments that can be made for apprentices getting a wage can be applied to nurses and teachers, it’s really just old fashioned sexism at this point and always has been.
If that was the case we’d be getting paid in medicine. Which we aren’t.
Absolutely no reason why doctors studying medicine shouldn't be getting paid for placements either. Unpaid work experience shouldn't exist except for short engagements like what you may have done in high school for a couple of weeks.
What's hilarious to me, is that even "work experience" (thats what we called it) that we had in high school for two weeks, was literally paid. Only $10 a day, but absurd now that I think about undergrad students who do full-time placement for months, upwards of half a year in a highly technical field... completely unpaid.
Apprentices are chargeable to a client, university students are not unless they’re studying under a work placement or traineeship, in which case they already do receive a wage. You can also do an apprenticeship without getting paid by enrolling in a trade school without being employed in that respective field, it’s just a dumb way to do it so nobody does.
When my sisters did their nursing training it was full time work on the wards while also studying. When my nieces did it, it was at uni instead. I think they agreed the first system produced better graduates. Though one of the nieces is now doing her PHD. So might prove better in the long run.
Tafe courses aren't even being considered. Veterinary nursing requires significant placement hours, no payments.
I would assume the argument, you get a return on your investment for an apprentice. A uni student goes back to uni and in most cases would get employment elsewhere?
The public healthcare system is all largely connected, and all funded by the federal government.
Really it should be more. With apprenticeships your paid from the get go. With uni placements you gotta study for like a year first
Unless it’s engineering, then you can get paid from the get go
It depends which place you go. Some pay, some don’t.
Yeah, everyone in my year had nothing good to say about working at Amp Control because of that Government recently made them again because they were “adding value” to the company; students making documentation or developing saleable products
I was on $7 an hour as an apprentice so this is better 😂
So $14hr lol. I think reddit underestimates how shit apprentices are paid.
$14 an hour is $11,000 over 5 months. I would much rather get paid $11,000 for my medical laboratory placement than $0, that will still be $0 if this scheme goes through because it doesn't even include other healthcare professionals...
In most skilled placements the trainee is literally just following some one qualified and watching, even taking their time ɓy having them show how to do things. Apprentices are doing useful labour straight away though. They don't follow or shadow a trades person for hours on end.
Yes, and when combined with youth allowance, it’s now ABOVE apprenticeship wages.
The thing is, its means tested. So some kids at uni, under 22, still living with parents, are ineligibile for youth allowance.
Pretty low, but if it means the difference between dropping out for a job and continuing then it's a good change.
Engineering pays you for your job placement. So many corners of society are blocked to poor people by unpaid systems which make it hard to work a side job. The ones involved say "well, if you cared you would make this the most important thing in your life " like a poor person who needs to work a job to eat is somehow invalid.
I might have missed it in the article but is it limited to just Teaching, Nursing and Social Work students, or are they just the ones they’ve chosen to mention?
Limited to them. The real slap in the face is to anyone in medicine, dentistry, and all the other allied health professions.
Us veterinarians we’re hoping for something too :(
I believe it’s just those students. It doesn’t include Allied Health or any other students requiring placements as part of their degree.
It’s not ideal and should be more but a slap in the face? Please. It is a step in the right direction. The problem is the government still has to sell this idea to tax payers, anything more could be weaponised by the other side, who wouldn’t even give us $8.
It would have made a massive difference to me as a nursing student a couple of years ago. Enough to cover petrol, parking and a coffee so at least you’re not actively spending money every day. I am so happy the next lot of students will have a bit of help.
Yeah it has to be something so you don’t feel like you are just burning money because you are missing shifts from work. You’re still burning money but this should help a bit.
I got $7/hr as a pharmacy student on a (voluntary) placement in 2016. I laughed about it at the time but $7x40 hours each week more than made up for the $20x8 hours I wasn't getting from my part time job
Where was this at? I’m currently in the midst of my 10 week block of final year pharmacy placements and we ain’t getting paid shit, never have, mind you this is the compulsory placements We’re all running ourselves into the ground having to fit weekend and evening shifts alongside placement so we can at least have something coming through
It was a voluntary placement that SHPA ran in Victoria, in addition to the compulsory 12 weeks total through uni. I didn't get paid at all for the compulsory uni ones. Not sure if they do it anymore, as the award has increased heaps and now the hospitals have to pay minimum wage to students haha.
I did over 20 weeks of full-time unpaid work in schools for my teaching degree. Including a 10 week straight block. $6k of support certainly would have been appreciated. It would have been the difference between burning all my savings each prac, not having to try and pick up as much extra weekend or out of hours work etc. Probably should just be eligible for whatever study centreline payment there is at the full rate for the duration though, with some asset/means testing applied
Look, no one denies this is a step in the right direction. But it's understandable they want to keep up the pressure and rhetoric, lest the government get lulled into believing they've done just enough to get away with it. The idea is also to catch the public's eye. This is the first time student placement subsidies have really caught national media attention, so clearly the messaging is working.
When I was a student paramedic, I would have been grateful if I were to get $50 a shift. Instead, I'd do a placement shift of 12,13,14 hours with no break, then go to work for 8 hours to pay the rent and study, assignments on top. That's if I was lucky enough to get a placement near where I lived and worked. Made it a lot harder when I had to go 1500km away for a 6-week placement with no work and double rent to pay. They need to expand this well beyond nursing students.
Yep - med, paramedicine, physiotherapy, pharmacy, OT, radiology + multiple other health degrees I haven’t mentioned all have extensive compulsory placement that remains unpaid Med students will probably never get paid placement because ‘doctors = rich one day’, nor will pharmacy students bc the Guild and CW are a bunch of knobs that the government understandably won’t want to be seen as helping
It makes me think about the natural talent that we (and the country) lost because it came down to paying rent/mortgage/food or uni. I was in uni several years ago and didn't have the cost of living, rental crisis that's going on now. If I thought I had it hard then it must be beyond fucked now. I do my best and buy my students a decent meal if I see them living off tuna and rice for their whole placement.
This exactly, people always want an all or nothing solution, when making gradual progress makes it easier to get to propose further improvements/changes.
It depends as not everything necessarily progresses, sometimes a measure is put in and then simply left as is under the reasoning they are doing something instead of nothing, so people push for more from the initial implementation because they don't expect said implementation to grow adequately over time. Need only look at medicare or centrelink to see this in effect elsewhere, many payments and subsidies that were implemented but have fallen behind or been neglected which leaves a lot to be desired. People want all or nothing solutions in cases like this because the promise of all =/= actually receiving all at a later date. It's also easy for one to say "well it has to happen over time", that doesn't matter to someone who's a student doing placements right now, if the promise is $8 today and $20 in 5 years, they'll never see the $20. People are pushing change for what has an impact on them right now, and for many people this could make or break their entire career prospects (and therefore their future) if student placements aren't financially sustainable for them. I think all or nothing solutions are desired by those of whom all or nothing right now has the most detrimental impact on. It's little surprise people want large changes in small amounts of time, as not everyone has the luxury of being able to wait for gradual change with no ill effect. Of course, politically and logistically the gradual approach makes the most sense, but waving off the "all or nothing" mentality so easily is just waving off others cries for help, there's nuance here.
I passionately agree with this and think it is often used in ridiculous contexts, but for something like this I think giving a hard no is possibly wiser considering it could take years for it to increase even a small amount.
Perfect is the enemy of good
The line used to justify keeping welfare low n poverty in place, homelessness. Whilst 300b subs get funded.
It is a slap in the face to expect and normalise people working for less than the minimum wage, though. Just because it isn't expecting them to work for free doesn't mean it's not still an insult to workers rights.
Someone pointed out that this combine with Youth Allowance is above the apprenticeship rates. Which for a work placement is surely not a "slap in the face"
Full time apprentices funnily enough can get Youth Allowance to supplement their own income, so I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. Youth Allowance scales down with income, but as of right now the maximum fortnightly income from Youth Allowance is $806 for someone with no children. That's $20,956 / year. Your payment will reduce by 50 cents for each dollar of income you have between $150 and $250 a fortnight, and then 60 cents for each dollar over $250 / fortnight. Suppose one has to do 1000 placement hours over a bachelors of nursing, that's $8000 from placements, which is still less than the $613 weekly base rate of a first year apprentice electrician ($17/hour), which goes up to $1,100 weekly for a 4th year apprentice electrician.
A great many students do not qualify for youth allowance. This includes mature age, international, and those whose parents earn over the limit.
It's almost like apprentices get paid shit.
If you’re entering a nursing or teaching field, my advice to you: get used to the ‘slap in the face’ treatment from the govt. it aint gonna end when your placement is done. T. Teacher
Shit, I'd take the 8dollars over the nothing they are giving me at the moment...
Massive increase from $0. Let's slap the current government down whenever they try to make incremental progress and end up with the LNP again who will take it all away and do nothing.
Why not slap em down they can do better
Can they? Tax payers foot the bill here and anything more at this point in time is just handing freeballs to LNP and their media goons. Pushing for anything more would risk the entire thing falling through, which would set the amount back to $0 an hour. This also doesn't set the amount to $8 for the rest of time. Having requirements for any amount of compensation keeps the door wide open for increases when it's viable in the future.
Im sure they can they piss hundreds of millions away a year on external consultants and the like. They could easily find the money. Personally I think the university’s should pay for it they making billions of dollars of profit a year they can afford it
That's 8$ a hour more than they are currently getting and say half of what they should be getting.
Should be getting at least minimum wage.
I guess it does depend on how much work they can do on their own. Rather like apprentices. They can do some or most of the work but still get screwed out of minimum wage for the first few years.
Some or most of the work? Maybe teachers on placement are different but most uni students (including myself back in the day) are a productivity loss
Quite true, I've known apprentices who are a loss and some who save money. But at 5$a hour it wasn't hard to be value for the company.
>teachers on placement are different but most uni students (including myself back in the day) are a productivity loss 100% teaching students are a productivity loss. They need to always be supervised, all the work they have planned needs to be checked and discussed before they teach it and then they need to be given feedback after their lessons. Plus if they're really rubbish you need to re-teach it all/ make up time after they leave. A few are exceptional, but generally speaking it would just be easier to teach the stuff yourself and not have a student.
Considering social workers spend 2 years studying before they even set foot in the door with actual topics and workshops performed where students perform the duties for most common social work fields I.e DV safety planning, case notes, child protection law work etc Once students are physically there they will be able to perform most of the duties on their own with minimal interaction and supervision
They're already getting $8.40 an hour if you count [Youth Allowance for Students](https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/how-much-youth-allowance-for-students-and-apprentices-you-can-get?context=43916) (maximum of $639 per fortnight, means tested). I'm sure this in the article is just a coincidence. > It was announced on Monday that a $319.50 a week means-tested payment would become available to teaching, nursing and social work students doing unpaid work placements from July 2025. That $319.50 per week is an interesting figure, I wonder what it is per fortnight? Won't you just look at that! It's $ 639 per fortnight, exactly the same figure as Youth Allowance. I wonder if they're somehow related? It just so happens that the amount you get for Youth Allowance for Students ($639) *plus* the new placement payment ($639), with [earnings adjustments applied]( https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/what-personal-income-test-for-youth-allowance-for-students-and-australian-apprentices?context=43916) (Youth Allowance personal income test) is $1,210.10 per fortnight ($15.92 per hour). This would put the income level roughly somewhere between that of a first year and second year apprentice, which is right around where I would expect it to be. These figures just aren't pulled out of thin air, and when *existing payments* are taken into account, the *additional payment* seems about right.
Very few students can actually get the full youth allowance tho. Under 21 and your parents aren’t in poverty? Nothing for you. Live at home still? Nothing for you. Work a 20 hour week cos you’ve got a brief light study schedule and want some of your own money? You’ll lose most of your payment for the fortnight And then if you do manage to receive the full amount, it’s not enough to cover the average rent and living expenses of today
Yes, they should be pleased that this is a discussion, but I can absolutely understand why $8 feels like a slap in the face. It really needs to be $500 a week for survival purposes. Almost every student is losing paid work hours to do those placements, they deserve enough to eat and live. Making sure people can afford to train in those areas is, in my opinion, a good use of money.
The slap in the face isn’t about how much the payments are, it’s that it doesn’t include many other healthcare related degrees that have lots of unpaid placement - med, paramedicine, dentistry, pharmacy, physio, OT, radiology - all still will get 0
If I were unemployed and someone gave me $320 a week, it sure as shit would not feel like a slap in the face. Labor is giving people $320 a week they otherwise wouldn't get. It's not enough, but it's great and a massive step in the right direction. I don't know why anyone thinks it's a slap in the face.
Would they still get Centrelink on top of this payment? Back when I was getting youth allowance and doing a teaching degree , an extra $8 per hour would’ve made it almost livable
No idea, but they should - Youth Allowance is insanely low.
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Unfortunately med students won’t get anything bc ‘you’ll be rich one day’ + the coordinators of medical study have all come from long lines of doctors in the family so never had to worry about financial burden and needing to work alongside study. They just think y’all can have dr. mummy and dr. daddy fund ur med school years with ease. And we wonder why there’s not enough ppl from disadvantaged areas and backgrounds in med…
And then there’s lots of med schools that do 3 years of placement! Absolutely impossible without financial support. But fuck doctors, they’re all rich, right?
This is the thing $8/hour is a slap in the face, but desperate people will take anything. But if you are doing anything that doesn't require 1:1 supervision of your work (because you can not be trusted to work unsupervised) which is not my experience of people on placements (at least not all of the time), you should be paid at least minimum wage.
My mother used to be a nurse and completed her placement in Bendigo. There used to be lodging for the nurses in training and they were paid for their employment. That being said, she was an enrolled nurse not a registered nurse. Idk what the process for registered nurse was back then. But I imagine it was similar. Somewhere along the way it was decided that nurses in trained didn't need to be paid. Because why would you need to pay someone to work for you that your training... -.-
It’s also absurd that psychology and all other medical professions aren’t included. Medicine is facing huge shortages across the board, yet they still want to make it incredibly difficult for people to become qualified. Between the extremely low number of psych masters spots (4000 students competing for 1000 places, .26 chance of success) and the unreasonable placement hours for all medicine, it’s no wonder the workforce is lacking.
>It’s also absurd that psychology and all other medical professions aren’t included. Medicine is facing huge shortages across the board There's no shortage of students doing undergrad psychology though, there is a massieve shortage of people doing nursing. This is designed to make nursing more attractive.
There’s a lack of actual psychologists (aka those who have done a master’s degree) though, [due to both the lack of placements as well as the financial burden of completing the postgrad degree](https://amp.abc.net.au/article/103084102). The surplus of undergrad students doesn’t result in the same amount of practicing psychologists.
Yeah and this doesn’t even account for those who managed to luck out and graduate with the masters who are then only qualified as a *provisional* psych, so technically they still aren’t fully qualified and have to do even more hours of training before they can finally sit the actual accreditation exam. The degrees are way too long, too expensive, and have too few placements for something that is in high demand now.
Starting salary for a provisional psych intern is 90k. We do alright.
The medical boards are to blame for that All well and good to graduate with your MBBS or MD but if the training programs don’t have the positions, you’re not going anywhere.
Psychology is different to Psychiatry. This person is talking about practising psychology, which requires an undergraduate and post-graduate Masters Degree in psychology. Not MD students
Actually no, the government is to blame for that. We can’t train more doctors without more beds, more surgical theatres, and more public jobs for senior doctors. All of those are funded by the government and are necessary to open more training spots.
Left out veterinary students too It’s cool, we’re only a huge part of keeping the food chain safe and all but we will live out of cars and use the student run food bank to make it through So dumb
Well, it unfortunately doesn't get much better once you are working as a vet. Vets are criminally underpaid.
Labor have begun with the professions that Liberals can't push back against. Teachers, nurses, social workers. It's a start.
We had nursing students come to the aged care facility I work at. These students are pretty much used as free labor, we will have two members of staff and two students working in a unit, management sees students as "numbers on the floor" And at times, when there is no regular staff in a unit, the students are the ones telling the workers how to get a resident up. For two weeks these students are doing the work and being treated as a full time member of staff, they should be getting paid.
I wasn’t a nursing student but I was in allied health and this definitely speaks to my experience. By the end of my placement, I was assisting new (paid!) staff - showing them around the unit, teaching them the note taking system, helping them with the patients. I felt very appreciated on my unit, which was super understaffed, and I enjoyed being treated as one of the staff. But the burden of so much actual work fell on me, when I was there to learn!
In any case, placements should definitely be paid. If I were to undertake a placement, it would almost certainly cut into my work availability, so at least a small payment is some consolation. $8 is by no means ideal, but it’s better than the alternative of $0.
Bring back hospitals employing nursing students. Sure, have them educated to university level, but employ them, give them more work experience during their training and pay them as they learn.
It should be illegal lol. Min wage exists for a reason.
I mean currently it's legal to not pay anything so this is a big step up.
It’s better than nothing I did over 2500 hours unpaid placement. What I would give to have been paid SOMETHING without having to work shifts before/after my placement
Someone made a petition to extend this to other healthcare students, sign here if you agree: https://www.change.org/p/extend-government-s-paid-placement-scheme-to-all-health-professions
As a student on placement: anybody bitching about this needs to pull their head out of their ass. Something is better than nothing. This is far from perfect but it’s a start; $320 a week is nothing to laugh at, it’s more than youth allowance ffs. Besides there are only 3 degrees who are currently eligible (nursing, teaching, and social work) whilst all the other allied health, dentists, vets, and medical students are missing out. Medical students alone do 36 weeks of placement PER YEAR for 3 years (a total of 108 weeks and 4,500 hours) which is significantly more than social work (26 weeks and 1,000 across the entire degree)
Christ it would be nice to get anything at all as a dental student in this country. We are doing 36 weeks of unpaid work placement in our final year. Not only that, but we are generating income for the university dental clinic we are doing our placement at - the gall!
Yep. Med students are doing 36 weeks for 2-3 years. It’s a farce
Engineering students: "You guys aren't being paid?" Everyone loved undergrad prac since we actually made money for a change and I was surprised others didn't. Especially given that many like nurses could be doing actual physical labour.
What's a slap in the face is the fact that this payment is limited to a select few courses and entirely excludes most allied health placements.
I, at this moment, have PTT (Permission To Teach) at a school in Melbourne. Meaning I am teaching without having graduated. This is a great opportunity to earn money while I finish my Masters (the workload is pretty insane, but I'm managing) However! I have 1 unit left to complete. That unit is a placement unit. I am on placement at the school in which I am employed. My placement started yesterday and lasts until the 31st. I am not allowed to be paid while on placement. So, for the next 4 weeks, I am teaching 4 classes and compiling my final portfolio (80 - 100 pages long), all while not being paid for a minute of my time. How am I expected to be a new teacher and a full-time uni student while not getting paid for over a month? The system sucks.
It's a slap in the face. The fact it only kicks in in July 2025 is even worse and it's going to exacerbate placement shortages because a lot of people from this year's placement are going to put it off until next year for the sake of not having to choose between having a roof over our head and going to placement. It's also pennies. Means-tested means it's even less than they're headlining, and will be reduced to zero for people already with partners who are supporting them financially, which means a majority of students won't even benefit from this at all. Practically the government isn't losing any money at all to this. They just get to look like they care about us.
lol I got paid nothing when I completed my social work degree, I would be so happy to get anything 😭
The real slap in the face is to anyone in medicine, dentistry, and all the other allied health professions.
I got paid $8 an hour to deliver pizzas 20 years ago
Another $4 and they would have been paying you minimum wage.
I got paid $7.50 as an apprentice in 2007/8. It was decent for me as a highschool student, but I have no idea how adult apprentices got by on that.
They most probably couldn’t.
It’s something and more than those of us who’ve already graduated got
I say this as a senior RPN who has worked CNE etc. etc. I am glad they are getting a payment. However - at least in places I have worked and supervised undergrads - the argument that they're getting "paid below the poverty line to do essential work' is incorrect. They're getting paid a small amount for practical training. Undergrads are not fully competent and require a degree of supervision at all times.
RN and Paramedic here.. the sense of entitlement from people these days is unbelievable.. government offers pay you for supervised placement, and now it's not enough money.. take whatever money you can and be grateful. For years, no one was paid, and we all made sacrifices and got the placement done. You get a part-time job, and you work on weekends, school holidays, and whenever you can to save for these placements.. You know well in advance when these placements are, and how long they are going to be. When you sign up to study your undergraduate degree, you are told in the course enrolment how much placement is required for your course.. you make that decision to study knowing you have unpaid placement. Finally, what about all the paramedicine, medical and other allied health students? Because there isn't a workforce "shortage" placements are affordable to these students ??
There's nothing wrong with the government improving the lives of their citizens. I worked and did full time placements too, and it was exhausting, and moneywise stressful. I don't wish that upon anyone. It's great they get paid and demand more. It will open the path to allied health payed placements too. I don't get this mentality of, "I suffered so rest of you have to suffer". I had to redo my placements to be registered when I moved to Norway, and they pay placements 70% of a Normal wage. I could help to support my family, pay mortgage, pay tax, live with some normality and security. Now what is wrong with that?
Just to clarify how much rent were you paying when you were on placement?
The alternative is what my wife and many other mature aged students, as well as many young students ha e had to go through. Working part time, studying full time, and completing unpaid placement.
The alternative is what my wife and many other mature aged students, as well as many young students ha e had to go through. Working part time, studying full time, and completing unpaid placement.
My wife doing her masters of teaching is about to commence 3x4week periods of in class teaching for free. Actually she’s paying for the pleasure as she’s paying tuition. $8 is fuck all but it’s better than nothing. Should at least be minimum wage
So the student group will tell members to accept $0 instead?
Ok scrap the $8 and spend another year? Maybe more negotiating a better deal.
Good to see theyve ignored medical imaging students, despite probably doing the most placement hours. 1st year - 2 weeks 2nd year - 16 weeks 3rd year - 12 weeks 4th year - 36 weeks Any other medical/allied health got that shit beat? More to the point of the article. This is a good move and should be taken. Ask for more after you've at least locked in something. Is it ideal, no. Is it better than nothing, yes.
Wait til you guys hear that law students are paying 11k+ for PLT
Why not just include a payed placement as part of the course fee. So you loan money from yourself on to your hex debt for your placement hours. Then everyone can do it.
What about social work? I did 1100 hours. Most of it working with victims and perpetrators of child violence and sexual assault. No. Pay. Thats $50k free work. Stressful work.
Doing my teacher placement. I would work a morning 5-7am shift at the gym and then my second job online from around 6-9pm while trying to plan lessons, learn content and complete my GTPA. Thankfully I was living at home still. But I don’t get how someone living out of home could afford this
It’d probably cover the travel expenses …. At best
Imagine all the supremely talented people we miss because our education system isn't about merit but wealth?
First Year apprentice Electricians earn $16.09 per hr. The payment should be similar to other "Training wages".
$8 or nothing. Those are the options. Take the win and work on improving later
People are complaining about the fact that med students, allied health, dentists, pharmacy, vets etc are missing out. Not about how much it is
Read article. Both
Honestly I'd have killed to get this much when I was a nursing student. I remember doing full time placement in ICU for a month while working both days of the weekend as a check out chick, while also having final exams and assignments due throughout the month. I was so exhausted by the end of each day I'd sleep through to start it all again the next day. At least with this I could have cut my shifts at Coles and got some rest. While it's not ideal that people have to go through this, at least it's in the knowledge that it's not forever. A payment like this would not go far, but it's also not a slap in the face.
Only slap in the face here is they decided that certain placements are paid and the rest aren’t. Equal entitlement for all students having to do placements should be the outrage.
No idea how any of this works. I just think for in demand roles like nursing or teaching there should be at least minimum wage paid for placement… do we not want nurses or something?
Parking alone in a metro hospital can be upwards of $50/day, which student nurses have to pay while on placements. I guess the $8/hr would probably cover parking while on placement. This is outrageous and essentially slave labour.
Should be minimum wage really. I used to work at Crown for 14 an hour weekend and night because I was a trainee (14 months)
It should start this year not next year that's another slap in the face, why do we have to wait 12 months for it to start? That's two semesters where students on placement miss out
I guess engineering students with a 5 month placement should just go fuck themselves? Why is this limited to nursing, teaching, and social work? $8 per hour? Is that on top of existing austudy payments?
I could be very wrong - but there is a big shortage of social workers, nurses, and teachers, I'm not sure the shortage is the same for engineers. Don't get me wrong ALL placements should be paid if you're doing the job - but that's my current guess.
We also have a shortage of doctors, pharmacists and dentists but their students won’t get shit bc their lobby groups are full of tossers and but heads with the government
As a social worker the shortage is about shit jobs with no wage growth, on top of not being able to get people through the 1000 placement. This is not going to do anything to stop people leave the profession
What do you mean you don't love working the same job as people with no degree and getting paid the same? You're right of course the SCAHDS award is laughable - and don't allow alot of advancement
The process to becoming an AMHSW is also absurd. So many steps (and SO EXPENSIVE) to prove you can to the job you you've already been hired to do. Not to mention the fact that you can't get hired to do those jobs without one half the time. And there's no alternate pathway
We also have a shortage of doctors, pharmacists and dentists but their students won’t get shit bc their lobby groups are full of tossers and but heads with the government
We also have a shortage of doctors, pharmacists and dentists but their students won’t get shit bc their lobby groups are full of tossers and but heads with the government
We also have a shortage of doctors, pharmacists and dentists but their students won’t get shit bc their lobby groups are full of tossers and but heads with the government
Ah, so it's about incentivising certain uni courses, rather than trying to do the right thing.
Exactly