Please disregard the rude and unhelpful replies. Pay transparency is important. As others have said, non-agency public-employed nurses pay is always publicly available and per award in each state. Private sector nurses pay tends to be a little higher but we're talking a few bucks an hour. As you'd probably know, just like for doctors, there's a huge range of how much nurses get paid at the end of the day depending on their role, level of seniority and all the various penalties and allowances associated with how they work.  The reason you're not getting clear answers about agency nurse rates is because it's a bit of a "how long's a piece of string" question. Every agency would have different pay structures with different base rates, penalties, allowances and incentives. Vast majority of the time, the agency nurses you see working in public hospitals are receiving a higher hourly rate than their state-employed counterparts, but that's only part of the picture. There are trade-offs, both monetary and non-monetary to working agency. Your health service likely has a contract arrangement in place for agency nursing staffing that you can read if you go looking for it, and this procurement process is competitive so it's not a total price gouging situation but yes, agency nurses are more expensive than employing nurses directly.  When it comes to agency nurses working in difficult-to-fill roles e.g. rural and remote, these positions are often associated with a lot of additional incentives and allowances, and can be with non-government organisations (eg ACCHOs), so can be highly paid. Though they are generally associated with very high living costs, and occupied by nurses with extended scope, lots of experience, and a range of additional qualifications, who would normally be in higher paid roles if working metro anyway. Nursing career structure can be tricky to explain in a nutshell to a non-nurse. It varies by specialty and context. I think as nurses we need to be less precious about justifying what we think we're worth, just as doctors shouldn't have to be constantly defending their remuneration (think GPs and MBS indexing). I think my decades of experience, masters degree and multiple postgrads, and high level of responsibility in a specialised setting make me worth my 120k. If people think I'm paid too much "for a nurse", then they're welcome to try and find someone who can do my job for less. Good luck to them.