Operator guide · Updated 31 August 2026
Nurses Award MA000034 Pay Rates, and the Three Awards Beside It
A nursing agency almost never runs one award. The registered nurse on a hospital shift, the support worker on a home care visit and the personal care assistant in a residential facility can each sit under a different instrument, with different classifications, different penalties and different rules about what counts as a broken shift. Getting the instrument right is the decision that matters, because everything else follows from it. This page covers which award covers whom, the four things that set the number, and where to read the current figure on the day you need it.
Start here
The rate is four decisions, not one number
The single most common payroll error in agency nursing is treating the award minimum as a rate rather than as the base of a calculation. Four things sit between the award and the number that lands in the pay run, and all four have to be right.
1. The classification, which is about the role and not the person
The Nurses Award classifies by role and by pay point within it: nursing assistant, enrolled nurse with pay points, registered nurse across levels that run from a graduate through to senior management, and nurse practitioner. A nurse with fifteen years of experience working in an assistant role is paid the assistant classification. Classify the work, then check the pay point, then write both onto the employment record.
2. The employment type, which changes the base before any penalty
Full-time, part-time and casual are three different bases. Casual employment carries a loading on the ordinary rate in place of leave entitlements, and the loading interacts with penalties in a way the award specifies rather than in a way that is obvious. A casual on a Sunday night shift is not the ordinary rate plus loading plus penalty by simple addition unless the award says so, so read the clause rather than assuming the arithmetic.
3. The shift, which is defined by when it finishes as well as when it starts
Afternoon and night shift attract shift penalties, and the award defines those shifts by their start and finish times rather than by what the roster calls them. A shift that finishes after a defined hour can attract the higher penalty even though it started in the afternoon. This is where rostering software and payroll most often disagree.
4. The day, which stacks on top of the shift
Saturday, Sunday and public holiday rates sit on top of the classification, and public holidays are declared per state and territory, so the same date can be a public holiday in one jurisdiction and an ordinary day in another. An agency placing staff across a border has to hold both calendars.
And the allowances, which are the part that quietly accumulates
On-call and recall, sleepover, uniform and laundry, vehicle and travel, meal, and higher duties. Individually small, collectively the difference between a placement that makes money and one that does not, and the ones most often left off the invoice to the facility because they were left off the timesheet first.
Which award applies
Four instruments, one roster
Coverage is decided by the industry the employer operates in and the work the employee actually performs, not by the employee's qualification alone. An enterprise agreement, where one applies, displaces the award for those employees but cannot leave them worse off overall against it. Read the coverage clause of the instrument you think applies before you rely on it, and get advice where a worker plausibly sits under two.
Nurses Award 2020
- Instrument
- Nurses Award 2020 (MA000034)
- Where to check
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Nurses Award summary
The core instrument for nurses in the private sector. It covers nursing assistants, enrolled nurses, registered nurses and nurse practitioners employed in the private health industry, including agency placements, private hospitals, medical practices and, for the nursing classifications, aged care. Its classification structure is the one an agency spends most of its time in.
- Nursing assistant, enrolled nurse, registered nurse levels and nurse practitioner classifications
- Pay points within classifications that step with experience, recorded per employee
- Shift, weekend and public holiday penalties defined by the times worked
- On-call, recall, sleepover, uniform and travel allowances set by the award
Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010
- Instrument
- SCHADS Award (MA000100)
- Where to check
- Fair Work Ombudsman, SCHADS Award summary
The award most agencies meet the moment they place staff into home care or disability support rather than a facility. Its home care and disability services streams carry rules the Nurses Award does not, in particular minimum engagement periods, broken shift arrangements and travel time between clients, which are precisely the mechanics that decide whether a short home visit is profitable.
- Home care and disability services streams with their own classification scales
- Minimum engagement periods per shift, which set a floor under short visits
- Broken shift rules and the allowance attached to them
- Travel time and vehicle allowance between clients, which belong on the invoice too
Aged Care Award 2010
- Instrument
- Aged Care Award (MA000018)
- Where to check
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Aged Care Award summary
Covers employers in the aged care industry and their employees in the classifications it lists, including personal care work, catering, cleaning and administration in residential aged care. Nursing classifications in an aged care setting generally sit under the Nurses Award instead, which is why a residential facility roster routinely runs two awards side by side.
- Personal care, catering, cleaning and administrative classifications in aged care
- Runs alongside the Nurses Award in the same facility rather than instead of it
- Work value decisions have moved aged care rates on their own timetable in recent years
- Check the classification descriptors, not the job title on the roster
Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020
- Instrument
- Health Professionals and Support Services Award (MA000027)
- Where to check
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Health Professionals Award summary
The instrument for allied health professionals, technical and support staff in the private health sector. An agency that places physiotherapists, occupational therapists or pathology collectors alongside nurses is running this award too, with a separate classification structure and separate penalty rules.
- Health professional, support services and administrative streams
- Separate classification scales from the Nurses Award, not a variation of it
- Applies to allied health placements an agency makes beside its nursing roster
- Check coverage against the work performed, not the professional registration held
Enterprise agreements and public sector instruments
- Instrument
- Registered enterprise agreements, and state public sector awards and agreements
- Where to check
- Fair Work Commission, find an enterprise agreement
Where a facility has a registered enterprise agreement, that agreement applies to its own employees in place of the award, and it cannot leave them worse off overall than the award would. Public hospitals in most states run under state public sector instruments rather than the federal modern awards. This matters commercially as well as legally: your agency staff are your employees under your instrument, while the facility's staff beside them may be on a different one entirely, and the facility's rate expectation is usually anchored to theirs.
- An enterprise agreement displaces the award for the employees it covers
- The better off overall test is the floor, so the award still sets the comparison
- Public sector nursing in most states sits outside the federal modern awards
- Your agency staff are covered by your instrument, not the host facility's
What to hold
What a placement record has to carry for the pay run to be right
Agency payroll goes wrong at the timesheet, not at the calculation. If these six are captured per shift, the calculation follows; if they are not, no payroll system can recover them.
Classification and pay point, per employee
Stored against the person, reviewed when the role changes and when a pay point steps. Not inferred from the job title on the booking.
Award or agreement, per employee
Which instrument covers this worker for this work. A nurse doing home care visits and facility shifts in the same fortnight may sit under different instruments for each.
Actual start and finish, not rostered
The shift penalty is decided by the hours worked. Rostered times that are never reconciled against actual times are the single most common source of underpayment and of unbilled hours.
The facility and the state
For the public holiday calendar and for the invoice. An agency operating across a border needs the placement to carry which jurisdiction it happened in.
Allowances triggered on the shift
On-call, recall, sleepover, travel, meal, higher duties. Captured at the shift, not reconstructed at the end of the month.
Break taken or not taken
An unpaid break that was never taken changes both the pay and the bill. Record it either way, so the exception is visible rather than assumed.
What goes wrong
Where agency payroll goes wrong
Every one of these is recoverable if it is caught in the fortnight and expensive if it is caught in the audit.
Paying a flat hourly rate and calling it above award
A rate can be above the award on a Tuesday and below it on a Sunday night. Unless there is a compliant annualised arrangement with the reconciliation the award requires, the comparison has to be made shift by shift.
Using last year's rate after the first full pay period in July
Award minima move on the first full pay period on or after 1 July, not on 1 July itself. Agencies that change the rate on the calendar date underpay or overpay for part of a fortnight every single year.
Applying the wrong award to home care visits
A registered nurse doing home care work may be covered by SCHADS rather than the Nurses Award, and SCHADS carries minimum engagement and broken shift rules that change the economics of a short visit completely.
Ignoring minimum engagement on a one-hour visit
Where a minimum engagement period applies, a one-hour visit costs the agency the minimum regardless of the time on site. Pricing that visit at one hour to the facility guarantees a loss on every occurrence.
Treating casual loading and penalties as simple addition
How loading and penalties interact is set by the award clause and differs between instruments. Assuming they compound the same way in every award is a systematic error that repeats across every casual shift.
Losing the allowance between the timesheet and the invoice
On-call, travel and sleepover allowances that were paid to the nurse but never billed to the facility are pure margin erosion, and they are invisible because the payroll side balances perfectly.
Questions
Common questions
Where do I find the current MA000034 dollar rates?
From the Fair Work Ombudsman's Pay and Conditions Tool, filtered to the Nurses Award 2020 and to your employee's classification, pay point and employment type. It is the only source that is correct on the day you read it, because award minima are adjusted following the annual wage review and take effect from the first full pay period on or after 1 July each year. This page deliberately publishes no hourly figure, because a stale rate on a page an agency rosters from does more damage than no rate at all.
Which award covers a registered nurse doing home care visits?
It depends on the industry the employer operates in, not on the nurse's registration. A nurse employed by a home care or disability services provider is likely to be covered by the SCHADS Award (MA000100) rather than the Nurses Award, and SCHADS brings minimum engagement periods, broken shift rules and travel time provisions with it. Because the answer turns on coverage clauses that reward careful reading, this is the situation most worth checking with the Fair Work Ombudsman before you set the placement rate.
How do the Nurses Award and the Aged Care Award divide a residential facility?
Generally by classification rather than by building. The nursing classifications in an aged care facility, nursing assistants, enrolled nurses and registered nurses, sit under the Nurses Award, while personal care, catering, cleaning and administrative classifications sit under the Aged Care Award. The practical consequence is that one facility roster runs two instruments at once, and the payroll has to hold which one applies to each person rather than applying one to the site.
What is minimum engagement and why does it change my pricing?
A minimum engagement period is the shortest period an employee must be paid for when they are called to work, set by the award. Where one applies, a thirty-minute medication visit costs you the full minimum whether or not the client needed the rest of it. If your invoice to the facility is priced on time on site, every short visit loses money by design. Price the engagement, not the visit, and make the minimum visible on the booking so the person taking the job can see it.
Can I pay one flat rate that covers everything?
Only through an arrangement the award actually permits, and with the reconciliation it requires. Annualised wage arrangements exist in some awards, but they come with record-keeping and an obligation to compare what was paid against what the award would have produced, and to make up any shortfall. A flat rate chosen because it feels generous is not that arrangement. Where the roster is heavily weekend and night weighted, a flat rate that looks well above award on paper frequently falls below it in practice.
Do public holidays follow the employee or the facility?
The facility, because public holidays are declared per state and territory and some are declared for part of a state only. An agency placing staff across a border, or into a regional show day, has to hold the calendar for the jurisdiction the shift was worked in rather than the one the agency is registered in. Store the state on the placement so the pay run and the invoice both read it from the same field.
Sources
Where each row came from
Every claim above traces to one of these. They are the pages to re-read on the next annual sweep, and the pages to check first if your own situation is unusual.
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Nurses Award 2020 (MA000034) summary
- Fair Work Ombudsman, SCHADS Award (MA000100) summary
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Aged Care Award (MA000018) summary
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Health Professionals and Support Services Award (MA000027) summary
- Fair Work Ombudsman, Pay and Conditions Tool
- Fair Work Commission, annual wage review decisions
- Fair Work Commission, find an enterprise agreement
- Ahpra, Nursing and Midwifery Board registration standards
Keep reading
Related guides
Nursing agency software
Place shifts across facilities, track Ahpra registration expiry, capture timesheets against the placement and invoice per facility.
Aged care and NDIS provider software
Rostering, case notes and claim-ready invoicing for providers running care in facilities and in homes.
AHPRA registration guide
Registration standards, CPD and renewal across the regulated professions, for the compliance side of a placement file.
NDIS provider software
Participant records, SCHADS-aware rostering and invoices carrying support item numbers.
About the author
Bishal Shrestha
Founder & CEO, OneBookPlus
Bishal spent a decade running digital projects for Australian small businesses before founding OneBookPlus. He writes and maintains these pages, and publishes what OneBookPlus does not do alongside what it does.
Read the founder bioHow this page was researched
The state-by-state figures on this page come from each state and territory regulator directly, linked in the row they belong to, because the rule differs by jurisdiction and a national summary would be wrong in six places. Everything said about OneBookPlus describes what the product does today.
Get the instrument, the classification and the actual hours onto the placement
Store the award and classification against the nurse, the state and facility against the shift, and the allowances against the timesheet, so the pay run and the facility invoice read the same record instead of two spreadsheets. Free to start, no card.
Last reviewed and updated: by Bishal Shrestha