About $60 million of New Zealanders’ money has been invested in weapons used in the Gaza conflict, Radio New Zealand reports.
Investment organisation Mindful Money found that some of the providers of KiwiSaver, a New Zealand savings fund, have invested in global arms manufacturers since their share prices began to rise in October 2023 following Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Mindful Money chief executive Barry Coates said most people don’t want to invest in guns, but they don’t realise where their money is going.
Coates said providers were chasing short-term profits and not thoroughly researching their investments.
“That’s how the financial sector has traditionally operated, chasing short-term returns but not looking at the consequences of what they’re investing in. I think what we’re seeing here is a continuation of that, and at the end of the day thousands of people have been killed and injured in Gaza,” he said.
He said providers needed to tell people if their money was being invested in weapons.
“There needs to be more transparency so that people can understand where their money is being invested. There is some information that fund managers are legally obliged to give, but … a lot of that information is meaningless and doesn’t really inform the public,” he said.
Coates said account holders had been vocal on social media about withdrawing from KiwiSaver funds that invested in weapons used in Gaza.
“People are changing their investments. In some cases, investment providers are looking at the level of public concern and saying ‘oh, we’re going to take our money out of these companies’. So one of the good things that people need to do is not only change their funds, but also go back to their funders and say ‘this is not what I want my money invested in’,” he said.
