Nurses have been voted as Australia’s most highly regarded profession for the 24th year in a row in the Roy Morgan Image of Professions Survey, while politicians standings have taken a nose-dive.
Nurses commanded incredible support from the community, with 88% of Australians rating members of the profession either “high” or “very high” in the area of “ethics and honesty”.
Roy Morgan’s CEO Michele Levine put the result down to the role nurses played in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year.
“Nurses have been front and centre around the world during the last year as we’ve dealt with the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Ms Levine said.
In contrast, politicians’ standings within the community took a nose-dive, with only 7% of Australians rating MPs as being highly trusted. This is as compared to the 16% of Australians who gave them a “high” or “very high” rating in 2017 – a dip of 9%. This puts them behind union leaders, lawyers, and business executives.
The standings provide some insight into how the community values the contributions of nurses. Despite this, nurses continue to have their wages and conditions attacked by politicians at both a state and federal level.
For example, state politicians in NSW have provided nurses in the state a pay offer of a mere 1.04% for the 2021-2021 financial year. This is despite at least one NSW Minister, Damien Tudehope, receiving a $16,920 pay rise over the past year.