is acupuncture a realistic career?!

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TCM and Acupuncture are being used by increasingly more Westerners. In Canada plenty of MD's take certification courses in acupuncture because it's much more effective with no harmful side effects than a lot of drugs. It offers them a great opportunity to actually see results.
You aren't wasting your time at all.
And you certainly don't need to pay any attention to wacky trolls who'll take any opportunity to bash everything they don't comprehend.

3 years! Wow!

Acupuncture is of little use and any effects seem to be quite easily bettered by simple aspirin. Seeing as anyone can call themselves an acupuncturist, there's really no need to waste 3 years of your life and goodness knows how much money pursuing what will effectively be a worthless degree.

Do another qualification in something useful like nursing, health studies, sports science etc. If you want to practise acupuncture at a later date that's fine, but if not then at least you'll have a real qualification in a real subject. Supposing the Australian government decided to denounce acupuncture as nonsense (as is quickly being the case with other alternative medicines in other countries) ? That'll leave you with your invalidated qualification, struggling to get a job: ("You've got a qualification in WHAT??!! Nope, not a hope of getting this job mate......")

Seriously, acupuncture is firmly in the world of quackery and fantasy, don't waste such an important career decision on such a worthless, pointless and much mocked pseudo-subject.

http://www.acuwatch.org/general/taub.sht…
http://www.ebm-first.com/acupuncture.htm…

Well, it depends on your qualities.

But whatever your qualities, you will always have a disadvantage :
the price.

In my country people pay only very little money for a doctor's visit.
The rest is paid by tax money.

Whether it's fair or not to influence people's choice in this way,
is another discussion.

If you want to spend 3 years studying how to administer an elaborate placebo, then go for it.

Do some research, start here: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=14

yes! i have a family member who was a doctor and then went into acupuncture and he is still doing very well money wise
plus, he likes it more than the stuff he was doing before in his doctor job

Acupuncture is licensed in Australia and even covered under national insurance; why would it not be realistic?

I guess, but it would be very low pay