Allied Health Professions Australia (AHPA) has called for the Commonwealth Prac Payment (CPP) to include all health professions to help tackle placement poverty during clinical placements.
AHPA, whose members include Audiology Australia, wrote to Mr Jason Clare, the Minister for Education, seeking a commitment to an immediate expansion of the CPP to include all allied health professions. AHPA also requested a meeting to discuss the path forward for broadening the program.
Allied health students and leaders including Ms Bronwyn Morris-Donovan, AHPA CEO, put their case to politicians at Parliament House, Canberra on 28 July 2025. They said they had strong support from Dr Monique Ryan, Independent MP for Kooyong, Mr David Pocock, Independent Senator for the ACT, GP Dr Sophie Scamps, Federal Member for Mackeller, and Dr Helen Haines, Federal MP for Indi.
The payment was announced in the 2024-2024 Federal Budget and started on 1 July 2025 for nursing, midwifery, teaching and social work students.
AHPA said, in a media release on 23 July 2025, that the new payment was a welcome step towards recognising the significant unpaid workload of clinical placements and the disproportionate impact that unpaid placements have on many students.
But the program excludes most allied health disciplines, leaving students to undertake mandatory placements often hundreds or thousands of hours long, and frequently in rural or remote locations without income support.
“The decision to limit Commonwealth Prac Payments to a narrow set of disciplines fails to reflect the significant workforce shortages in many allied health professions, their vital role in Australia’s health, mental health, disability, education and aged care systems, or the high volume of placement hours required to complete training,” said Ms Samantha Hunter, AHPA chair.
“Every part of the health workforce is critical, and every student should be supported to complete their education without facing financial crisis.”
She said many allied health students reported significant hardship while on placement, including loss of income, housing and food insecurity, and increased mental distress – a growing problem dubbed ‘placement poverty’.
These challenges disproportionately affected students from low-income, regional or diverse backgrounds, threatening diversity and the ability to build Australia’s future health workforce, Hunter said.
“As a sector we are working closely with governments, universities, clinical educators and placement providers to identify barriers and issues underpinning current workforce shortages across health, aged care, disability and mental health,” she said.
“There is clear evidence that students are dropping out, deferring or swapping to part-time study because they can’t afford to complete unpaid placement requirements. If the Federal Government is serious about addressing ongoing workforce shortages in the allied health sector, this is a policy blind spot that must be addressed.”
AHPA said its call for expansion was backed by evidence showing that financial barriers impact completion rates, decisions about which placements to undertake, and ability to focus on learning.
This included a 2024 University of Wollongong survey of 530 participants – mostly health profession students – which found placement poverty has major implications for the future health and education workforce.
The authors said their study “identified widespread financial difficulty in students undertaking placement that adversely impacted personal wellbeing”.
“Strategies are needed to support wellbeing and ameliorate the financial burden,” the researchers wrote.
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