NZ University Staff Members Call On Pension Fund To Divest From Israel

14 August 2024

Three hundred and seventy-eight staff and community members from New Zealand Universities have signed an open letter calling on the board of the UniSaver Limited to review its investment strategies and fund holdings. The letter raises concerns about potential breaches of international humanitarian law, stating that ‘UniSaver’s reported list of holdings includes entities which are invested in and benefit from the illegal military occupation of Palestinian territories, as well as the genocidal war on Gaza’.

UniSaver is available to staff at seven of New Zealand’s eight universities and is presented as a superannuation scheme which ‘offers a higher employer subsidy than KiwiSaver.’ Like KiwiSaver, the scheme is provided through various funds which include a different mix of investment assets. A detailed breakdown of these assets and holdings is available on the UniSaver website.

"I find UniSaver to generally be of immense value to myself and my colleagues, which makes it all the more painful to learn that my future retirement is being in part funded by war profiteering and the indiscriminate slaughter of my friends’ families. In no uncertain terms, I call on UniSaver to make the ethical choice and immediately divest from these unethical investments" says Brandon Johnstone, a UniSaver member at Otago University.

University Workers for Palestine (UWP), which originally drafted and circulated the open letter, has also provided a summary of the assets in question. These include Israeli government bonds, Israeli banks, and weapons producers such as Israel’s Elbit systems.

In addition, UniSaver’s reports show assets and holdings in companies and multinationals which have been either named by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as entities which are involved in servicing or financing illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, or have documented links with Israel’s Apartheid system, including Hewlett Packard, Airbnb, and Caterpillar.

The open letter comes three weeks after ethical investment charity Mindful Money has called on fund managers to be more transparent, citing figures which show that $60 million in New Zealanders’ KiwiSaver money is invested in global arms manufacturers. The financial world faces increasing pressure to divest from Israel, with well over 40,000 people killed in Gaza, and settler and military violence in the West Bank increasing.

Several signatories noted they were considering joining the UniSaver scheme but decided not to because of their holdings in entities that support illegal occupation and genocide. One person stated they would be encouraging colleagues to withdraw: ‘This letter comes at a great time as I was just preparing to enroll in a superannuation scheme as a new hire. I was considering UniSaver but I certainly won’t be enrolling with them now, and I’ll be encouraging colleagues to switch as well’.

The open letter issues three demands of the Unisaver:

1. Take immediate steps to review its portfolios and to terminate its holdings in entities which make it, and us as members of UniSaver, complicit in the crimes of the Israeli state,
2. Outline a clear plan for divestment where immediate termination is not possible, and
3. Develop policy measures to ensure its financial and investment strategies are in keeping with the internationally recognised BDS framework.

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