Yesterday, the Full Bench of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission handed down its decision in New South Wales Nurses and Midwives’ Association v Health Secretary [2026] NSWIRComm 4, awarding historic pay rises between 16-28% to nurses and midwives in NSW.
The increases are the highest pay increases awarded to any group of workers in NSW in more than 20 years. Assistants in nursing were awarded a 28% pay rise, the biggest pay increase apparently ever awarded to a group of workers by the State Commission. NSW midwives, registered and enrolled nurses at the top of the pay scale are now the best paid in Australia. The increases are exclusive of a further 1% increases in superannuation.
The significant increases, to almost 70,000 workers, were awarded due to the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association successfully establishing three aspects of its case:
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Gender undervaluation – the Full Bench said a “key reason” is that the work of nurses and midwives involves skills which had been invisibilised because of the majority women workforce, and no work value review had “expressly considered” these “historically overlooked” caring, communication and interpersonal skills, which are “not only integral to the work of nurses but of high work value”.
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Cost-of living – nurses and midwives’ pay fell behind the cost-of-living during the COVID-19 pandemic, partly due to former wage caps. “The extraordinary and unexpected high inflation caused by the COVID-19 crisis provides a proper basis for a one-off reset”.
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Work value – the Full Bench accepted that since 2009 “there has been a further significant change to the way that nurses, midwives and assistants in nursing work”, finding it “of a sufficient magnitude to meet the “strict test’ of the work value principle” and holding that they “are currently undervalued and they deserve a one-off increase”.
Leo Saunders of Greenway Chambers led
Lucy Geddes of 6 St James Hall for the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association.
Bronwyn Byrnes of 6 St James Hall appeared for the NSW Health Secretary, led by Simon Meehan SC and with Emily Aitken, both of State Chambers.
The decision is available here.
