Ninety-eight per cent of Victoria nurses who belong to the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) Victoria branch voted "Yes" on Friday for protected action.

About 30,000 public sector nurses and midwives cast their ballots and favoured the protected action because of lack of progress in negotiations with the state government.

"They are implementing the gentler, but also significant bans, because they want to signal their good faith bargaining intentions to reach a negotiated acceptable outcome," ABF Victorian branch Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said in a statement.

The nurses sought protected action after reports leaked that the Victoria government plans to loosen nurse-to-patient ratios and flexible rosters, and to use nurse assistants who have lesser skills.

The measures are expected to reduce budget for salaries by more than $100 million a year, which would allow the Victorian government to hike wages of nurses by more than 2.5 per cent a year.

The government is proposing a 14 per cent wage increase for nurses in Victoria spread over four years but the nurses sought 18.5 per cent over the same period.

However, Premier Ted Baillieu denied such a plan existed. He said the government plants to hire more nurses in public hospitals, not less.

"We're putting more than $700 million additional into the health system and more than $500 million additional into the acute health system and that's going to come with more nurses," Mr Baillieu told The Herald Sun.