Assistant Secretary Paul Gilbert, Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick and former Assistant Secretary Pip Carew at the 2016 EBA statewide members meeting which endorsed the eight-year wages deal.
General and aged care public sector members will receive a further three per cent pay rise in December. This is the second three per cent pay rise of the 2020 EBA; it will start on or from the first full pay period from 1 December 2021.
Newer members may not be aware that this increase is part of an eight-year wages deal endorsed at the final 2016 EBA statewide members’ meeting on 5 May 2016. This wage agreement has protected Victorian nurses’ and midwives’ wages in the current economic climate.
By comparison, the NSW Government gave nurses and midwives a 0.3 per cent increase in the first year of the pandemic and a 1.5% pay rise in 2021. The Queensland Government announced a public sector worker pay freeze in 2020. QNMU (the Queensland branch of the ANMF) secured a six-month deferral of nurses’ and midwives’ April 2021 pay rise.
ANMF (Vic Branch) uses the public sector nurses and midwives EBA as the benchmark agreement for its negotiations in all other workplaces. This is why private acute members also received the historic 2019 pay uplift and continue to maintain pay parity or higher. This will vary according to the timing of the pay increases – for example, Ramsay members will be higher than public sector members at the end of their agreement. In the current round of enterprise bargaining, private acute members are securing wage increases between nine and 10 per cent over the life of their agreements.
The tables below outline the pay rises since the implementation of the 2016 EBA, and state wage comparisons:
Table 1. Pay rises over ANMF’s eight-year pay deal from 2016–2024
| April 2016 | 3.6-4.8% |
| April 2017 | 3% |
| April 2018 | 3.25% |
| April 2019 (historic pay rises – see table 2) | Variable depending on classification to reach net pay parity* with NSW nurses and midwives (see table below) |
| December 2020 | 3% |
| December 2021 | 3% |
| December 2022** | 3% |
* In 2019 all Victorian nurses and midwives achieved ‘net’ or ‘after-tax’ NSW pay parity. Presuming both the Victorian and NSW nurses and midwives are salary packaging, each will take home the same income. NSW nurses and midwives must give their state government 50% of their salary packaging benefit. Victorian nurses and midwives keep 100%.
** The 2020–24 EBA expires 30 April 2024.
Table 2. Historic ANMF 2019 pay rises
| Victorian classification | Increase April 2019 |
| Enrolled nurse | 4%* |
| Grade 2 Year 1 | 3.17% |
| Grade 2 Year 2 | 4.99% |
| Grade 2 Year 3 | 6.65% |
| Grade 2 Year 4 | 8.58% |
| Grade 2 Year 5 | 10.36% |
| Grade 2 Year 6 | 11.89% |
| Grade 2 Year 7 | 13.96% |
| Grade 2 Year 8 | 15.76% |
| Grade 2 Year 9 | 13.07% |
| Grade 2 Year 10 | 10.52% |
| Clinical Nurse/ Midwife Specialist | 11.77% |
| GRADE 3A Year 1 | 10.69% |
| GRADE 3A Year 2 | 10.69% |
| GRADE 3B Year 1 | 11.02% |
| GRADE 3B Year 2 | 11.02% |
| A/NUM Year 1 | 13.81% |
| A/NUM Year 2 | 15.14% |
| N/MUM Year 1 | 14.9-19% |
| N/MUM Year 2 | 12.2-16.1% |
| N/MUM Year 3 | 9.6-13.5% |
| Grade 4A, Year 1 | 9.88% |
| Grade 4A, Year 2 | 7.75% |
| Grade 4B, Year 1 | 10.83% |
| Grade 4B, Year 2 | 8.67% |
| Nurse Practitioner | |
| NP Year 1 | 15.16% |
| NP Year 2 | 13.23% |
*Enrolled nurses received higher increases in the 2012–16 EBA and continue to be the highest paid ENs in the country.
Table 3. State wage* comparisons – base rate before allowances and penalties
| Victoria | New South Wales | Queensland | Western Australia | |
| EN Level 2.7 | $1328.30 | $1232.90 | $1268.90 | $1266.50 |
| RN/midwife Grade 2, Year 1 | $1260.80 | $1259 | $1388.90 | $1316 |
| RN/midwife Grade 2, Year 5 | $1554.60 | $1542 | $1650 | $1530 |
| RN/midwife Grade 2, year 8 | $1780.80 | $1767.70 | $1781.45 | $1714 |
| A/NMUM | $2061.80 | |||
| Nurse/Midwife Manager 3 | $2353.90 | $2322.70 | $2325.55 | $2176.14 |
| Nurse/Midwife Manager 4 | $2436.70 | $2385.30 | $2383.40 | $2244.16 |
*weekly full-time base rate.
