'Use us or lose us' final-year student and graduate rally, Parliament House steps, Tuesday 23 September 2025. Photo: Christopher Hopkins
‘We met with final-year students last week. Seventy per cent did not receive a graduate position. They told us they felt gutted, they felt betrayed, they felt let down, they felt like a failure. I want to say to these students: you are not a failure. This is a failure of policy.’ – ANMF (Vic Branch) Secretary Maddy Harradence
On Wednesday 17 September, around 2400 final-year student nurses and midwives learned they had not received a graduate position. This is almost half of the current graduating class.
It is also a seven-fold increase on the roughly 350 students left without a grad year in 2025 – and this is heart of the matter: this is not the standard variation in the job market; this is a short-sighted failure of policy and planning.
And it makes no sense. In April, the government expanded our legislated nurse/midwife-to-patient ratios and it has also agreed in-principle to a hospital classification review that will see 23 hospitals and eight emergency departments across the state with improved ratios. The government is opening new hospitals in Footscray and Frankston, and renovating many more. These improved ratios and new hospitals will require more nurses and midwives in the system.
Many of the students – though by no means all – enrolled in response to the state government’s call for Victorians to study nursing and midwifery as part of a $270 million workforce training and recruitment plan that offered all new domestic students in a nursing or midwifery course in Victoria in 2023 and 2024 funding of up to $9000 to cover their three-year course costs.
The plan also promised these students would be eligible to receive a further $7,500 if they worked in Victorian public health services for two years following graduation.
The aim was to increase our workforces, coming off the back of the government’s own modelling predicting nursing and midwifery shortages over the coming years. This modelling is reinforced by the national Nursing Supply and Demand Study 2023-2035, which predicts that Australia will face an undersupply of almost 80,000 nurses within the decade.
Yet working members feel this every day, today. We hear from you regularly about repeated requests to work overtime, to do double shifts, to work extra hours. You are overworked, short-staffed and burned out.
We need these new nurses and midwives now. We need them for tomorrow.
What is ANMF doing?
ANMF (Vic Branch) began meeting with health services, deans of nursing and midwifery and the state government as soon as we heard the numbers. We have also been in discussion with the Commonwealth about other possible solutions they could help with, including funding additional graduate places in aged care.
On Tuesday 23 September, we took our message to parliament.
‘This is step one,’ ANMF (Vic Branch) State Secretary Maddy Harradence told the students and concerned community members gathered on the steps. ‘We are seeking that government consider all solutions on the table, such as additional places in aged care, or in mental health. We also know there is a place for private hospitals. We are meeting with all CEOs from private sector acute services,’ she said.
‘So this is stage one. And through this stage, I need you to keep being loud. I need you to write to the newspapers. I need you to call into Jacqui Felgate and Raf Epstein. I need you to keep speaking to your family members, to your community members. I need you to keep being noisy on social media. I need you to sign our petition.
‘That petition is to the premier and the health minister. We need to make it very clear that this is not just felt by you, but it is felt by the community. So I need you to share that petition widely. We’re already over 5000 signatures. Let’s smash that. Let’s double that,’ Maddy said.
These first steps are about immediate, short-term solutions. The Branch is also calling for medium-term and long-term solutions. We’re advocating for closer coordination between universities, AHPRA, PMCV and health services so training numbers match available positions, for example.
We’ve also been in preliminary discussions with the Department of Health about potential improvements to PMCV’s match process.
There is more work to be done. And ANMF is exploring all options. As final-year student and RUSON Jemima Volcano Busasa said at the rally, ‘this is not the end; it is just the beginning’.
Who was at the rally?
Jess and Nellie
Final-year student Jess did not receive a match. Speaking to the crowd, she got emotional as she shared that she had to quit two jobs in order to do her required 12 weeks of clinical placement during her studies. ‘And now I’m walking out of my degree without a job.’
Nellie still has two placements left to complete. She also missed out on a grad year. ‘I feel like I’ve let myself down, like I was not good enough,’ she told ANMF. She is incredibly upset and stressed. ‘I have a lot of anxiety around what I’m going to do next year,’ she said.
Melissa
Melissa has been in the workforce as an EN and RN for over a decade. She is currently completing her second year of a midwifery degree. Melissa unfortunately did not have a good experience during her RN grad year so has not yet decided whether she will be applying for a midwifery graduate position but she attended the rally in solidarity with her fellow students and the community.
She also knows that without a midwifery grad year it may be far more difficult for her to find employment as a midwife, so she is keen to do what she can to help.
Brendan
Brendan is an experienced nurse at the Victorian Heart Hospital. He attended the rally to support students who are now looking for a graduate year. ‘I remember when I was a grad nurse,’ he said, ‘and I just want to make sure that these people who have worked so hard through their degrees can get a job and use what they have learned, and help support the Victorian health system.’
What is a graduate year and what does it entail?
Nursing and midwifery graduate programs allow first-year nurses and midwives to consolidate their knowledge, skills and confidence within a supportive professional environment.
They are designed to offer a range of experiences and opportunities. Some programs enable a single ward experience where graduates can strengthen their experience and professional integration with a stable team over 12 months. Other programs offer rotations to different areas within the year, allowing graduates to experience different wards or clinical areas.
Graduate years also offer structured, planned and strategic study days though the year, designed to build confidence and readiness.
While a graduate year is not essential for future nursing and midwifery success, they are a well-regarded and beneficial first step in contemporary nursing and/or midwifery careers.
