Dai Le (Fowler, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the member for Indi's matter of public importance and to make one simple point. Unless the Commonwealth prac payment is expanded beyond a narrow group of disciplines, we will continue locking future health workers out of the system we claim we urgently need. As we have heard from crossbench members, while we all welcome the government's scheme to provide about $332 a week in prac payments for student studying teaching, nursing, midwifery and social work, many are asking: why are we stopping there? Why are physiotherapy students excluded? Why are radiographers, psychologists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, paramedics and medical students left out?

This isn't a small policy oversight. It cuts through the principle of fairness and undermines our ability to fix our workforce shortages. The reality is straightforward. Allied health and medical students complete long, unpaid full-time placements. They can't work while doing them, but rent still has to be paid and transport still needs to be paid for, as does food, textbooks and basic bills. Too many are being pushed into an impossible choice: push ahead with placements and fall into financial stress or walk away from their degree entirely.

In a community like Fowler, those decisions bite even harder. According to the 2021 census, almost 12,900 students in Fowler enrolled in tertiary education, including over 8,000 university students. Many are the first in their family to go to university. They are our future doctors, physios, psychologists and radiographers. They come from migrant and working-class families. They want to give back to the suburbs that raised them, and we need them to. Fowler has historically recorded some of the highest GP bulk-billing rates in Australia, in the mid-90 per cent range, because our families cannot absorb a large out-of-pocket cost.

I want to share the story of David, one of the young people on my Fowler Youth Advisory Committee. David wants to become a doctor so he can serve the local community his family has called home for decades. He is bright, hardworking and compassionate, the kind of culturally competent, locally grounded doctor we desperately need. But David is really worried about how he will afford his clinical placement. He told me that, when the time comes for months of unpaid full-time placement, he doesn't know how we will survive financially. His parents are already stretched, he doesn't want to be a burden, and he isn't alone. Dozens of students tell me the same thing. If students like David cannot afford to finish their degrees, Fowler loses out. The country loses out.

The government will say this expansion is too expensive, budgets are tight, placements across disciplines are too complex to administer, or they will call for more consultation—anything to delay a decision. But the cost of doing nothing is far greater. Modelling shows Australia will need around 25,000 additional allied health workers by 2033 in aged care alone. Jobs and Skills Australia projections indicate the broader health and social assistance sector will require over half a million new workers in the next decade.

Yet the very students who could fill these roles are being pushed to breaking point by placement poverty. Some of the heaviest burdens fall on medical radiation students. Students undertaking degrees in radiation therapy or diagnostic therapy can expect up to a year of full-time work for zero income.

Expending the prac payment scheme is not a handout; it is a strategic workforce investment. If we are serious about fixing shortages, supporting young people doing the right thing and ensuring communities like Fowler have the healthcare workforces they need, then we must end this two-tiered system and extend the prac payment to all health disciplines with mandatory clinical placements. I call on the government to show leadership and get this done. I commend the matter to the House.

See this speech in context