Greens call for socially responsible choice for Kiwisaver

Green Media Release 4th March 2007

Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman has used his speech to the Party’s South Island Policy Conference in Akaroa to call on the Government to ensure that there is a socially responsible option for workers who sign up to the Government’s Kiwisaver superannuation scheme.

“The Greens are calling on the Government to ensure that at least one of the Kiwisaver default providers offers a socially responsible option,” says Russel Norman, Green Party Co-Leader.

“The default providers are likely to end up with most of the investment money, so we need to make sure that New Zealand workers have a real choice of an investment portfolio that doesn’t destroy the planet.

The Greens revealed recently that the New Zealand Superannuation Fund has investments in companies that manufacture nuclear weapons, destroy the environment and breach labour and human rights.

“It is entirely feasible under the current Kiwisaver arrangement that the savings of Kiwi workers will be invested in companies in China employing prison labourers to produce products that undermine the wages and conditions of New Zealand workers in breach of international labour and human rights standards.

“Without an ethical Kiwisaver option, workers who sign up to Kiwisaver will have no choice but to invest their savings in ways that destroy the planet and potentially undermine their own wages and conditions.

“The Greens have come out of our successful conference this weekend determined to press the Labour-led Government to provide a socially responsible option for workers under Kiwisaver scheme,” says Dr. Norman.

ENDS

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