Forest campaign launched
After much preparation we launched the first part of a campaign around the logging of tropical rainforests this morning with street theatre outside the ANZ branch in Lampton Quay Wellington.
We have targeted ANZ because they are the banker to Rimbunan Hijau, the giant Malaysian logging company that is logging tropical rainforests across South East Asia, Melanesia and the Pacific. This logging is deeply unsustainable as it destroys the forest and the associated biodiversity and habitat for endangered species such as the orangutan. The World Bank has also collected eyewitness accounts of the human rights abuses that the eyewitnesses state were committed by the PNG police on behalf of Rimbunan in order to suppress opposition to the logging by the indigenous landowners of PNG.
You can find out more or read about the ANZ campaign being run by the Australian Conservation Foundation.
If you have an ANZ account and would like to help, you can sign a pledge to close your account unless ANZ cuts its ties to Rimbunan.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Has anyone found a bank in NZ that has an ethical policy? I’m a National Bank customer and am willing to leave, but I need another bank to go to, and can’t help but think all the other banks are the same.
August 20th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
I reckon go with Kiwibank - they’re bound not to be perfect but at least they’re NZ-owned.
Molly
August 20th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
I’m NBNZ as well; their policies for running in NZ were initially set by their parent company, Lloyds of London. Having been sold to ANZ, the banking paradigm of “let the sinking ship be run by the rats” is firmly entrenched.
I’d jump to Kiwibank too, probably.
Back in the day, I had a POSB a/c, which never lost any of my savings, so I guess Kiwibank can at least do that well.
At least I’m not going to be paying interest to a company that pumps profits offshore for dubious shareholder-led investments.
August 20th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
I have an ANZ account. I pledge to keep it.
Why not boycott KiwiBank and whatever bank the Govt uses, as they are more culpable than ANZ? Oh that’s right, you think you can bully ANZ but you can’t bully the government - even though you are in it.
August 20th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Dear KiwiBank (or any other relevant bank)
It has come to our attention that you have a customer on your books that is acting unethically. This customer is engaged in supporting wholesale environmental damage. They are ignoring every single environmental principle, even though their mission statement and press releases say otherwise.
I urge you to drop them as a customer forthwith, or else risk losing customers such as myself and potentially up to 55% of your entire client base as they get in behind me.
We expect you to act ethically and stop supporting this customer.
They have ignored all requests to do their bit to prevent environmental damage. Admittedly, some of this damage is occurring in other countries, but they still have the ability to take some meaningful action. And it’s not only environmental damage they are doing to the countryside. But surely, this fact alone is enough?
I trust we will see a full page newspaper advertisement advising us of your commitment to only having ethical clients, and that this customer will be gone by lunchtime.
Yours Sincerely
A Greenie or an acquaintance of a Greenie.
PS: The customer is the NZ Government
August 20th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Good to see you are combining forces with the Australian Conservation Foundation on this one. So whose idea was the policy again? Yours, or theirs?
August 20th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
ooooh do I detect a hint of jealousy there Zen?
it’s strange that you haven’t noticed but the Green Party are not actually in government. Although we do have a cooperation agreement with them, (a) that is not the same as being in government, and (b) it isn’t even an agreement to support them, it’s an agreement to abstain. So if you can’t even get basic facts like that right then I wonder about the accuracy of all your other pronouncements.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Minor detail stuey. So the Greens are cooperating with ‘the government”. And the government doesn’t give a rat’s ar*e about this issue so the Greens are gunning for the ANZ Bank. Or are the Greens the lapdogs of the ACF?
And jealous of what exactly? I’m just pointing out the Government is *more* culpable than the ANZ Bank. And obviously, the real culprit is the Forestry Company. But given the Greens can’t get at them, off they go for ANZ.
By the same token, I expect the same campaign against Air NZ. That’ll teach the yanks, eh what?
But hey, if this campaign fails, why don’t they kidnap the pet of one of the kids of a cousin of a man who works for the Forestry Company? If the logging doesn’t stop, the moggy gets it….
August 20th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Yeah Stuey. Once Einstein wrote ‘there’ when he meant ‘their’ and the entire theory of relativity was at risk for a few minutes. Luckily, the editor caught the mistake and set history on the correct course.
August 21st, 2007 at 8:23 am
>>it isn’t even an agreement to support them,
Self-delusion must be comforting…
August 21st, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Kiwibank => Mercer (this is not a low fee option either)
Mercer Investment Consulting is a unit of Mercer Human Resource Consulting, an operating company of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (MMC). MMC lists its stock (ticker symbol: MMC) on the New York, Chicago and London stock exchanges.
http://www.mmc.com/
These guys aren’t small beer. They aren’t exackly a “local” investment choice either.
Kiwibank, perhaps wisely (they aren’t exactly investment specialists) , perhaps not (they aren’t staying true to the NZ owned and operated meme), decided to outsource their kiwisaver program to Mercer. Since I am a Kiwibank customer I was considering this option. On current form I am I think, more inclined to contact Gareth Morgan.
Not that I expect Mercer to do anything bad with my money but the fees are pretty much the highest of the lot, and there’s damned little in it in terms of “made in NZ” except the passthrough labeling of Kiwibank.
respectfully
BJ
August 21st, 2007 at 6:40 pm
i donts want to try to be like them intellect people fwwog, but i was thinking that even if AIR NZ was not owned by Government it would still be disgusting what they did, can you imagine transporting people to kill other people, and can you imagine people taking out rain forest, we going to sort these lunatics out fwwog, and soon,
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:29 am
FYI Koinonia Fund offer an ethically-invested KiwiSaver scheme.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
If i;m actually earning interest off these guys( the national bank) are;nt i better off leaving my money with them?