Dear AIPP membership and website visitors. My name is Luke Roberts, and I’m a dual-registered Registered Nurse and Paramedic, currently working as a Clinical Nurse / Flight Paramedic in a FIFO capacity in Western Australia, and completing a Master of Nursing (Nurse Practitioner). I’m bringing a federal e-petition to your attention, as it directly affects the paramedicine and nursing workforce you lead/work alongside.

Petition EN10190 asks the House of Representatives to support: Expanded Medicare-funded services delivered by Registered Nurses, improved Medicare access and funding for Endorsed Nurse Practitioners, a nationally recognised Paramedic Practitioner endorsement pathway, Medicare-funded participation for Registered Paramedics and endorsed Paramedic Practitioners within their approved scope, nationally consistent prescribing, diagnostic, referral and advanced practice authority for endorsed nurse and paramedic practitioners. This directly affects both professions.

Australia currently has approximately 26,600 registered paramedics (Paramedicine Board of Australia) and around 400,000 registered nurses (per the Health Minister’s recent announcement on the RN PBS prescribing reform) — a workforce that is regulated, safety-vetted, and substantially under-utilised within current Medicare funding structures, particularly in rural, regional and remote communities. The recent passage of the Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025, giving designated RNs PBS prescribing rights, shows the Government is willing to act on the Scope of Practice Review recommendations.

EN10190 asks for that same principle to extend further — including a formal Paramedic Practitioner pathway, which remains absent nationally despite growing state-based models (e.g. Victoria’s Monash-led Paramedic Practitioner program).

The petition is open until 29 July 2026 and currently sits at 287 signatures. Given how directly this affects the paramedic and nursing workforce, I’d appreciate your support: Please sign the petition and share it with your teams and professional networks so paramedics and nurses who stand to benefit from these reforms have the opportunity to have their say. Petition link: https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN10190

I’m happy to provide any further details on the petition’s background or my own clinical rationale for supporting it. I’d also welcome the opportunity to join a virtual meeting with you or your team, at any time convenient, to speak directly about why I started this petition and the case for equitable, Medicare-funded access to both paramedicine and nursing scope of practice nationally — genuinely modernising Australia’s healthcare system at a federal level.

Thank you for considering this, and for the work you do supporting Australia’s paramedic and nursing workforce.

Kind regards,

Luke Roberts Registered Nurse | Registered Paramedic | Nurse Practitioner Candidate