PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Dr HAINES (Indi) (11:41): I'm delighted to speak today on the expansion of Commonwealth prac payments to allied health students studying psychology, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, paramedicine, radiography, pharmacy, rehabilitation therapies, audiology and podiatry. Eight weeks ago, Senator David Pocock and I brought a petition to this parliament, signed by more than 43,000 people, calling for the Commonwealth prac payments to be expanded to all allied health and medical students.
As well as signing on to that call, thousands took the time to share their story with me about why they supported expanding Commonwealth prac payments. I've read hundreds of these stories and the member for Deakin has outlined some of the key themes that come from those stories—stories about the physical, financial and mental toll that mandatory unpaid placements are taking on our future healthcare professionals.
A constituent of Indi wrote that her unpaid placement put her in such a financially vulnerable position that, one year on, her finances simply still have not recovered. Another constituent told me that they dropped out of uni altogether for this reason. What a loss.
It's not just prospective students that support this. Senior clinicians, university lecturers, parents and everyday people put their names on this petition calling for more support for our healthcare students. One woman wrote, 'We need the workforce to save our lives.' She was a cancer survivor treated by radiation therapy.
We simply can't overestimate the impact of health professionals right across Australia. Every Australian relies on doctors, pharmacists, dentists, physios, psychologists and many, many other health professionals. But mandatory unpaid placements have been causing health students to delay and drop out altogether.
It absolutely isn't good enough, and it's bad public policy. That's why I'm so pleased that the government has listened to and acted on the calls of tens of thousands of Australians to expand Commonwealth prac payments to more allied health students, and I thank the member for Holt for bringing this motion to the House. It's an example of when government, Independents, backbenchers and frontbenchers work together with community to listen and improve things.
I thank the Prime Minister and Minister Clare in particular for taking the next step in boosting the future of our health workforce. It's going to make a real difference to allied health students, and it will pay dividends. But I have to call out the member for Deakin.
It is not the final piece. The job is not done yet, because, unfortunately, some allied health professionals have been left out in the cold, along with medical, veterinary and dentistry students. I want to make the case for vets.
I'm a rural Australian, and I've spoken in this place before about allied health and medical professions in detail. Regional Australia is in dire need of more vets, who do so much more in addition to looking after beloved household pets. A country vet is just as likely to be treating our horses, our cows and our sheep as our cats and dogs.
Veterinarians are absolutely essential for protecting our biosecurity and agricultural productivity. Globally, they're playing a vital role in the early recognition of H5 bird flu, and we need more of them. We are crying out for them in the regions.
The Australian Veterinary Association's latest workforce survey found that 36 per cent of veterinary recruitment vacancies took 12 months or longer to fill, and, in regional areas, this number jumps to 44 per cent. Veterinary students need to complete 52 weeks of mandatory unpaid placement, so expanding Commonwealth prac payments to include veterinary students is a simple, practical way to support students—just as we're doing in the health sciences—to complete their degrees and address what is an absolutely manifestly problematic critical workforce shortage in rural and regional Australia.
The impacts of placement poverty caused by mandatory unpaid placements have been well established, as has the need for policies that grow our health and veterinary workforce. Knowing this, it's unclear to me what metric the government used to deem some students more deserving of Commonwealth prac payments than others. I congratulate the government on taking an important step in supporting more allied health students to complete their degrees, and I call on them: don't stop there.
Students in medical, veterinary, dentistry and the remaining health degrees also deserve a fair chance at completing their studies, and we need them. I've said so many times in this place that health care is a team sport. We need our full team able to participate.
This practical placement policy is a solid policy. It's a commonsense policy. It is supported by the community, and I know it is already helping to secure Australia's future in health.
We need to make sure it's expanded to those other professions, and we absolutely need to get our vets involved in this too.