NSW Nurses Award: Penalty Rates, Night Shifts & Overtime

The Nurses Award 2020 (MA000034) — formally the Public Health System Nurses and Midwives Award — covers registered nurses, enrolled nurses, and midwives at NSW public hospitals. Its penalty rate structure is more layered than most awards, and the combination of shift loadings, weekend rates, and overtime provisions means a typical payslip has several components to verify.

For the full award text and current rates, refer to the Fair Work Commission. Base rates are updated by annual wage review decisions.

Weekend penalty rates

Saturday and Sunday attract different loading rates under MA000034:

• Saturday: 150% of the minimum hourly rate (a 50% penalty loading on top of ordinary pay)
• Sunday: 175% of the minimum hourly rate (a 75% penalty loading)

A shift that starts Saturday night and finishes Sunday morning should show two rates: Saturday rate up to midnight, Sunday rate after. If your payslip shows a single rate across the whole shift, the Sunday portion is wrong.

Night shift and afternoon shift loadings

The Nurses Award 2020 includes shift loadings for afternoon and night shifts worked outside ordinary hours. Shifts that predominantly fall within defined evening and night windows attract a loading on top of the ordinary rate. The award text defines the qualifying hours for each shift category and the applicable percentage.

A dinner-to-midnight shift and a full night shift are paid differently, and neither is the same as a daytime shift at ordinary rates. If your payslip shows all hours at a single flat rate regardless of when they were worked, the breakdown isn’t there and you can’t verify the figure.

Shift It splits each shift at its rate-change boundaries and applies the correct loading to each segment. You’ll see exactly what each portion of the shift should earn.

Overtime rates

Overtime under MA000034 is calculated per shift overrun, not just across the weekly total:

• Monday–Saturday overtime: 150% for the first two hours, 200% for all subsequent hours
• Sunday overtime: 200% for all hours

Hours that overrun a rostered shift should appear as a separate line on your payslip at the overtime rate. If they’re showing at your ordinary rate, that’s an underpayment.

Public holiday rate

Work on a public holiday is paid at 250% of the minimum hourly rate. If the public holiday falls on your rostered day off, you are entitled to a substitute day in lieu. A 250% rate is significantly higher than the Sunday rate (175%) — applying the Sunday loading to a public holiday is a common error.

Casual loading and penalty rate stacking

Casual nurses receive a casual loading on top of their ordinary rate. Penalty rates for weekends, nights, and public holidays are applied on top of the loaded rate, not on top of the base rate alone. A casual nurse working a Sunday at 175% receives that 175% applied to their casual rate, not to the base rate with the casual loading separately added.

This distinction matters. If payroll calculates Sunday at 175% of the base rate and adds the casual loading separately, the result is less than what the award requires. The error compounds over a year of Sunday and public holiday work.

Level 1 to Level 3: classification matters

Base rates under MA000034 vary by classification (Level 1 RN, Level 2, Level 3, Enrolled Nurse, and midwife grades) and by years of service within each level. A Level 1 Year 1 RN and a Level 1 Year 5 RN have different base rates, which means their penalty rates differ too.

Your payslip should show your classification and year increment, not just a dollar figure. If it shows only a flat hourly rate without identifying the classification it was derived from, you can’t confirm whether the base is right. Getting the classification wrong makes every penalty rate wrong downstream.

Checking your NSW nurses payslip

A correct payslip for a nurse working a mix of weekday, evening, weekend, and overtime shifts will have multiple rate lines: ordinary hours, a shift loading for evening or night work, Saturday or Sunday penalty rates, possibly overtime, and a correct super calculation on ordinary time earnings. One or two lines covering the full fortnight isn’t detailed enough to check.

Shift It’s Pay Check supports the NSW Nurses Award and applies the correct rate to each segment of each shift automatically. If a shift crosses midnight from Saturday into Sunday, the rate changes at midnight. If an overtime overrun occurs on a Sunday, it shows at 200%. The total is compared against your payslip gross so you can see immediately if something doesn’t match.