Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 9:14:34 to 9:23:00
Senator Roberts questions why medical students are excluded from the Commonwealth Placement Payment despite high placement hours and significant equity gaps.
Topics: Education, Health
Speakers: Ms. Madonna Morton, Speaker 39, Senator Jess Walsh, Mr. Tony Cook, Unknown Speaker
>> Thank you, chair. Thank you for appearing again tonight. Um my questions are about medical students and the Commonwealth Payment. The Commonwealth PR payment CPP was introduced in July 2025 for undergraduate and master students in teaching, nursing, midwiffrey, social work plus eligible VE um nursing students. This is $33860 a week. payment was created to tackle placement poverty by relieving the financial strain on students com completing mandatory unpaid practical placements as part of their degrees. On the 23rd of July this year, it was announced that the comworth pment will be expanded to include 10 additional health disciplines. Those disciplines include aiology, pharmacy, radiography, clinical psychology, physiootherapy, rehabilitation therapies, occupational therapy, podiatry, speech pathology and parame medicine. What were the criteria used to select the 10 disciplines announced on 23rd of July 2026? And was medicine assessed against them?
>> Uh, sorry,
>> we've actually just gone through that with Senator PCO. We're happy to do it again, but we have just answered these questions about uh 20 minutes ago, but we'll do a quick rundown again of the criteria. I'll hand over to
>> Sure. Y >> um uh Senator, thanks for the question. So, um as Miss uh Yelich uh indicated to the committee earlier, there are three main criteria that we look at. Um the first is uh whether or not a discipline is in national skill shortage and for that we look at the jobs and skills Australia and its occupation shortage list. The second criterion we use is the completions data for those disciplines. So how many uh students are completing uh that course at university and uh we also sought advice from the department of health disability and aging uh in relation to um uh it has policy responsibility for the health workforces. Um you will recall that the CPP it's it's not a universal payment. It's a targeted program >> and the two factors um the two sort of major objectives of the program as you've already mentioned is to look at relieving cost of living pressures for students who have to undertake mandatory placements >> um as part of their study and also uh the investment in the critical work forces. So in terms of your question around uh medicine when you look at those three um criteria that I indicated the completions data for medicine is usually very high. So on that basis it wouldn't necessarily satisfy um that there was a particular need uh for um the mandatory payment to provide that cost of living pressure under this program. Um I'd also uh note that a number of uh states and territories also offer offer kind of support for um uh medical students and in particular as well um the department of uh health disability and aging they actually run a rural health multid-disiplinary training program uh and that is around I think it's around 1.36 6 billion and that provides uh health students with an opportunity to train in rural and remote communities uh in medical, nursing, dental and alli allied health professions as well.
>> Okay. So it's it's it's much more complex than it looks on the surface.
>> Sorry.
>> Much more complex than it looks on the
surface. >> Yeah. Yeah. There's a bit that goes into
The prime minister defend defended the exclusion of medical students from this expansion of the CPP eligibility by saying that funding is targeted at fields facing skill shortages and that quote there aren't any shortages of people who want to do medical degrees. End of quote. How many Australians applied for medicine in 2026 and how
need to take that on notice uh for you, Senator, but certainly as I mentioned on on on that criterion around completions data. We do have completions data. I don't have data with me about who is turned away. Sorry, I'm not sure you would capture that that information, but we can certainly look at the data that we have of who's enrolling in that particular course and the completion side of things as well.
>> Thank you. What share of the applicants, if you could take this on notice too, please. and of offers applicants and offers went to low SCES regional and first nation students.
>> Yes, certainly Senator so we can talk about the original program um that you mentioned earlier in your introduction to nursing >> social work midwifery and teaching and um Mr. Nordstrom will have that data to hand in a moment. So we can certainly give you I think rural and regional for that original program is about 23% from memory 25% in fact uh first nations is at 3.2% and did you mention low SCES was
that? Yes.
>> Yeah that's at uh 22.6% and um just not for nothing uh women are at 81.4% given the highly feminized nature of of those particular caring workforces. Yeah.
>> Thank you. Your own fact sheet says that the payment exists to help low SCEES regional and first nation students. The national data report 2026 by the medical schools outcomes database shows that in medicine 71.1% of final year students relied on family money to get through. And AMSA reports that the share of First Nations medical students nearly halves from 4.2% at entry to 2.3% at graduation. If equity is the purpose of the scheme, why is the degree with one of the widest equity gaps left out?
>> Um, as I mentioned, Senator, those three criteria um were the criteria that we look we looked at certainly um the advice from the Department of Health, Disability and Aging, which has responsibility for those workforces. We we don't have responsibility or insights or understanding as to who's presenting in those workforces and and how that's tracking. uh certainly that the data that we had available to us uh in formulating advice suggested uh that there was high completion uh data for that and that there were perhaps other pockets of the health workforces uh in relation to those three criteria that perhaps had more more need.
>> Thank you minister. The government will pay nurses, teachers, physiootherapists, and pharmacists while they're on placement, but not medical students who do the most unpaid placement of all. Students from wealthier backgrounds and in metropolitan areas will apply because they're the ones who know they can survive the hours of unpaid placements. Why should whether you can become a doctor in this country depend on what your parents earn or the area in which
>> Uh, thank you, Senator. Well, um it's really great to hear about your support for um paid P uh and for this program. Um this is something that has never been done before. Um the government heard that too many students were facing placement poverty uh and that they were um facing placement poverty um in areas where we really need people to to get through their degrees. areas like nursing, like teaching, like social work, like allied health. Uh, and so we've taken action and 64,000 Australians are now benefiting from paid PRA, have benefited from paid PRA. Um, we started with four courses. We're now at 14 courses. Uh, so many more, tens of thousands of Australians will benefit from paid P. uh and we will get the benefit of that as well. Um because um this is a targeted program helping people with cost of living pressures um when they have to undertake mandatory placements. Uh it's helping um retain students in areas where there are workforce shortages. Uh it is um a commitment that we made uh and we are delivering it. So, I noticed