If you or someone you love has ever been cared for by a nurse, please take a moment to read this and sign the petition.

In reliance on the prior commitment by the NZ Government to provide full-time employment for new graduate nurses, we call for immediate action to uphold this promise and ensure the majority of Nursing graduates enter the workforce and complete their mandatory first year of placement without delay*.

We call on The Minister of Health, Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand and the New Zealand Government to urgently address the crisis facing New Zealand’s 2025 new Graduate Nurses -  HUNDREDS of whom have been left without employment, despite successfully completing three years of study, clinical placements and exams.

New Graduate Nurses must complete a supervised first-year programme before they can become fully registered. Without this placement, they cannot progress in their profession or work independently as nurses. This year, hundreds of graduates have been denied this essential opportunity, leaving them qualified but unable to practise.

This crisis is causing serious harm:

• The mental and emotional toll on these graduates, who studied through COVID and entered a field advertised as being in national shortage, only to be shut out of the workforce, is immense.
• A profession that promised near-universal employment now leaves young nurses unemployed or working in unrelated jobs, simply to survive.
• New Zealand continues to recruit international nurses while locally trained graduates remain without positions.
• Meanwhile patients are suffering greatly due to severe nursing shortages, particularly since the nurse to patient ratio changed from 1:4 to 1:8 - with overstretched staff, patient care delayed and increased risk to health outcomes.

There is also growing concern about Te Whatu Ora offering many graduate roles at part-time hours (often 0.6 FTE). This is not a viable option for most graduates. A part-time wage cannot sustain nurses and their whanau facing rising living costs. Variable shift patterns make taking a second job nearly impossible and this approach risks driving new nurses out of the workforce entirely.

We call on the Government to act now and prevent the unnecessary loss of a generation of nurses:

• Reinstate the graduate nurse employment system that existed before 2025, under which 80–99% of Graduate Nurses were offered full-time, supported new graduate nurse placements - ensuring graduates can enter the workforce and complete their mandatory first year of practice.
• Restore safe nurse-to-patient ratios from 1:8 back to 1:4 to protect both patients and staff.
• Stop overseas recruitment while NZ-trained Graduate Nurses remain unemployed.

New Zealand invested in these nurses. They stepped up through a pandemic, completed three years of demanding training, placements, exams, and pursuant to the New Zealand Government’s PROMISE of full-time employment, and are ready to serve their communities. 

This petition aims to illuminate this pressing issue and galvanize our Government and healthcare leaders into action! We urge you to stand with us by signing this petition to ensure our new graduate nurses receive the opportunities they rightfully deserve, thereby fortifying New Zealand’s healthcare future.

Your signature can help pave the way for a more secure, efficient and compassionate healthcare system that supports the well-being of patients and staff for decades to come.

* see 2 of many media articles regarding the crisis: 

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/579282/graduating-nursing-students-nervous-about-delays-to-job-offers

https://www.nzno.org.nz/about_us/media_releases/artmid/4731/articleid/6791/no-place-at-te-whatu-ora-for-graduate-nurses