Wednesday, 15 October 2025

 Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (18:49): (2004) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health, regarding Victorian healthcare services. The action I seek is for the minister to guarantee or at least ensure that the 2000 graduate nurses and midwives who are scheduled to complete their course in 2025 secure a graduate position, whether in our excellent public hospitals, private facilities, mental health service, aged care, community health, rural or regional health or primary healthcare system. Parents in my electorate are concerned that their children pursuing nursing and midwife courses who are hoping to secure a graduate position next year may be left out of alternative employment. This concern arose due to the Allan government’s failure to effectively plan for workforce numbers, in spite of the investment covering university fees to increase the workforce in this sector. With the new hospitals in Footscray set to open at the beginning of next year, we should be ensuring these graduates have positions waiting for them.

The cost of living is causing many Victorians, including those in my electorate, to delay their retirement. This is destroying the state government’s predictions about job availabilities and making it increasingly difficult for graduates to find work in the system that they spent the past four years or more preparing to enter. If these young Victorians do not secure immediate employment, they may be compelled to explore entirely different career paths, which could have severe consequences in our healthcare system. We need long-term solutions to address the short-term oversupply of nursing positions. Our hospitals are under pressure and have been for a long time. This issue has been building, and the government must take responsibility for rectifying its own mismanagement. Minister, please ensure that our 2000 Victorian graduates this year in nursing and midwifery are secure with a graduate position by the end of 2025.