What the Nurses Award actually pays
Most general practices employ nurses under the Nurses Award 2020 (MA000034). Rates went up 4.75% from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026.
Here's where the levels sit now (base hourly, non-aged-care):
The classification question almost nobody asks
Here's the part worth reading twice.
The award defines RN Level 1 as a nurse who performs their duties under the general guidance of a more competent registered nurse.
Read that again with your own workplace in mind. How many registered nurses are in your building on a Tuesday?
In most general practices, the answer is one. You. There is no more competent registered nurse providing general guidance, because there's no other registered nurse at all.
The common counter-argument is that the GPs are there. But a GP isn't a registered nurse. Medical supervision and nursing supervision are different things, and the award says registered nurse. APNA has made this point directly: practices routinely classify nurses at Level 1 on the basis that a doctor is on site, and on the award's own wording, most practice nurses should sit at RN Level 2 or above.
Level 2 describes a nurse who works autonomously, uses assessment tools, and may hold postgraduate qualifications. Level 3 describes someone managing complex care independently, usually with postgraduate study behind them, running things like chronic disease or women's health services.
If you run a diabetes clinic, a wound clinic, cervical screening, or care planning with the GP reviewing rather than directing, you're describing Level 2 or 3 work. Where you're actually classified is a separate question, and it's worth going and finding out.
What that gap is worth
Depends where you're starting from.
A nurse sitting at RN Level 1 pay point 1 who should be at Level 2 is being underpaid $7.50 an hour. Full time, that's $14,820 a year. At 0.8 it's $11,856. At 0.6, still $8,892. Add 12% super on top of any of those.
A nurse already at the top of Level 1 has less at stake: pay point 8 to Level 2 pay point 1 is $1.02 an hour, about $2,000 a year full-time.
Level 2 to Level 3 is $3.34 an hour, roughly $6,600 a year full-time.
None of these are life-changing on their own. All of them compound, because every future percentage increase is calculated off the higher base, and because the level you're on shapes what the next practice offers you.
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The rest of the package
Pay isn't only the hourly rate. Worth checking:
Superannuation is 12%. If your payslip says less, that's a problem to raise immediately.
Allowances in the award include a uniform allowance of $1.26 per shift, an overtime meal allowance of $17.30 where it applies, and on-call allowances between $28.66 and $50.37 a day, depending on the day of the week.
What the award doesn't cover matters more. There's no allowance for an enrolled nurse who administers medicines, and none for supervising other nurses. If you're doing either, that's not automatically compensated. It's something to negotiate into your individual arrangement, and APNA's position is that nurses in those roles should be doing exactly that.
If you think you're on the wrong level
Find out what you're actually classified as.
It should be on your contract or your payslip. If it isn't, ask the practice manager directly. Not a confrontation, a question: "Can you tell me what level and pay point I'm classified at under the award?"
Check it against the award descriptors, honestly.
Read the classification definitions in Schedule A of MA000034 and match them to what you genuinely do. If your work fits Level 1, the answer is Level 1. Overreaching costs you credibility for the conversation that matters.
Write down what you do.
Not duties, outcomes. The clinics you run, the appointments you generate, the MBS items your work triggers, the GP time you release. This is the material for the actual conversation, and it's the same material that supports a rate above the award.
Raise it as a classification question, not a complaint.
Practices generally want to be compliant. Framing it as "I think my classification may not match the award descriptors, can we look at it together" gets a very different response from "I'm being underpaid." Most of the time nobody chose to underpay you. They chose a level once and never went back to it.
The bigger conversation
Where our courses fit
The Practice Nurse Pay Rise Guide is 4 hours of APNA-endorsed CPD and it's the second conversation, not the first. You build a two-page proposal, a workbook that converts your clinical week into MBS revenue and GP time saved using your practice's own billing data, and the meeting scripts to go with it. It's what we used in our own practice.
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Keyframe Health acknowledges the Kaurna people as the Traditional Custodians of the Adelaide Plains, and pays respect to Elders past and present. We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia and Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia, and recognise the ongoing strength, resilience, and contribution of First Nations peoples, cultures, and communities.
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