Simon Strombom repaints the white cross on a granite tombstone of a veteran's grave.
The Government should ensure the graves of New Zealand’s returned service people are maintained in a state reflecting the dignity they deserve, Northland MP and Act Party veteran’s spokesperson Mark Cameron says.
Cameron announced late last week Act was willing to set aside up to $1 million to support that work nationwide.
He said the funding would go to the New Zealand Remembrance Army (NZRA), a volunteer organisation that researches the service histories of military personnel, marks and restores their graves, and works with iwi to identify urupā where service people were buried and which often have limited formal records. It also restores and updates war memorials.
Cameron said while remembrance ceremonies were important, they were not enough on their own.
“Every Anzac Day, politicians speak at dawn services. But we should ask ourselves: are we honouring those who served with more than just words? he said.
Founded in 2018, the Remembrance Army has restored hundreds of thousands of service graves nationwide and documented thousands of individual service stories, largely through volunteer labour and private sponsorship.
According to Act, the organisation restores about 30,000 service graves each year on a budget of about $70,000 – a figure Cameron said demonstrated both efficiency and commitment.
Despite that track record, Cameron said the group had struggled to expand its work because of inconsistent and sometimes restrictive council rules governing cemetery maintenance.
“The Remembrance Army has had to deal with 62 different councils, with different processes and interpretations of cemetery rules, which has made it very difficult to manage their work on a national scale,” Cameron said.
Under Act’s proposal, councils would be required to accept service grave restoration work under a single national standard developed by Veterans’ Affairs in consultation with the Remembrance Army, rather than dozens of local rule books.
The party also wants volunteer organisations carrying out this significant work to be nationally recognised as heritage restoration partners, and exempted from additional red tape that it claims has slowed progress.
Act says the proposed $1 million would fund the development of the national framework and provide a direct Crown grant to help volunteers clear the remaining backlog of neglected graves.
Cameron said the work should remain volunteer-led.
“Act does not support paying public servants or council workers to do a job that is already being done more efficiently, with more care, by volunteers who understand the stories of the fallen,” he said.
Last year, the Northern Advocate spoke with Afghanistan veteran and NZRA managing director Simon Strombom, MNZM, DSD, ED and Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association (RSA) chief executive Evan Williams, about how New Zealand remembers those who have served.
Strombom said there was a stark gap between public commemorations and the condition of many service graves, while Williams emphasised the importance of supporting living veterans as well as honouring the dead.
Strombom said Remembrance Army volunteers were often the only people actively maintaining service graves, particularly as veterans now make up a far smaller share of the population than during the world wars.
He said the organisation’s work in Northland and elsewhere had uncovered neglected graves, missing service records and long‑overlooked medal entitlements.
Williams said the RSA supports the Remembrance Army’s work but plays a different role, focusing on veteran welfare, advocacy and organising commemorations such as Anzac Day.
He said that while many RSA members volunteer with the Remembrance Army, the RSA does not restore graves or centrally fund memorial updates, though local RSAs often work with councils.
Williams stressed remembrance should also include better support for living veterans, noting more than 12,000 New Zealanders have served on military operations in the past 30 years.
Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has 20 years’ experience in journalism, most of which she spent court reporting in Gisborne and on the East Coast.