Grassroots organisations, founded and run out of sheer compassion, are struggling to provide basic support that should already exist for New Zealand’s state care survivors. This situation is a national disgrace. Survivors—some of the most vulnerable members of our society—are being abandoned by the very systems meant to protect them.

Every day, state care survivors face a harsh reality: their calls for assistance go unanswered, their trauma untreated, and their fundamental needs unmet. Many have no access to counseling, no financial support, and no clear path toward healing. The lack of follow-through on long-standing recommendations leaves survivors waiting in vain for redress that never comes. Instead of seeing real change, we hear the same promises repeated year after year, while survivors continue to suffer—and in some cases, die—without the support they so urgently require.

Where is the accountability? Where is the justice for these individuals who were harmed under state care? Grassroots organisations like NZCAST step in only because no one else will. They are run by people who, despite having no funding or resources, can’t bear to see survivors fall through the cracks. These groups operate on aroha, not budgets. But it shouldn’t be up to volunteers to do what the government and other institutions are responsible for.

The survivors of state care have waited long enough. It’s time for the recommendations of past reviews and inquiries to be implemented—fully and without delay. Redress and support must be made available to those who were harmed. Until that happens, the gaps remain glaring, the injustices continue, and lives are needlessly lost.

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