ANTHONY ALBANESE MP
PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA
MARK BUTLER MP
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING
MINISTER FOR DISABILITY AND THE NATIONAL DISABILITY INSURANCE SCHEME
JASON CLARE MP
MINISTER FOR EDUCATION
The Albanese Labor Government is expanding the Commonwealth Prac Payment to people training in an additional ten key front line health professions. This will provide cost of living relief for students and support our future healthcare workforce.
Unpaid practical placements are a big part of healthcare degrees. For some courses such as radiography, it is more than a year of the degree. For that commitment, many students have to give up paid work and many have to move away from home.
Paid prac provides financial support to help students while they undertake practical training. Paid prac already covers eligible teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work students.
The Albanese Labor Government is now expanding it to eligible students studying these ten courses:
- clinical psychology
- physiotherapy
- occupational therapy
- speech pathology
- paramedicine
- radiography
- pharmacy
- rehabilitation therapies
- audiology
- podiatry
This is another way the Albanese Government is helping with the cost of living in addition to policies such as our 20 per cent cut to student debt, tax cuts for every taxpayer, cheaper childcare and backing wage rises.
Eligible students currently receive $338.60 per week during their clinical and professional placement periods. It is a means tested payment benchmarked to the single Austudy rate and indexed annually.
Paid prac is reducing financial pressure on students and allowing them to spend less time worrying about paying the bills and more time focused on their training.
It helps students doing placements when they have to relocate, including in the bush. Travel, accommodation and relocation costs can discourage students from undertaking placements in regional and remote Australia, where health workforce shortages are often most acute.
The expansion of the Commonwealth Prac Payment will help more students manage these costs, complete their qualifications and move into critical health and care jobs.
Expanding paid prac to more healthcare professions will help to continue building the health workforce Australia needs and strengthen Medicare.
