The Anti Bases Campaign (ABC) is delighted that the Methodist Church has taken the decision to divest from Rocket Lab.

Actually, it should never have invested in the first place but this decision rectifies that mistake.

To quote from the Methodist Trust Association (MTA, the Methodist Church's investment body):

"A decision was taken by the MTA Board in our February 2025 Board meeting to instruct our Executive Officer to exit in an appropriate and timely manner the stock holding in Rocket Lab. The Board acknowledged this decision may have financial consequences on this year’s returns but believed this decision was aligned with our obligations to comply with our socially responsible investing practices. It was noted that the holding was not in breach of our specific policies and procedures, but the Board's view was that, at this time, we were not comfortable with some of the alignment of the company as an investment option with Methodist ideologies".

For confirmation and/or comment, contact the Chair of the Methodist Trust Association, David Johnson (email: dave@lknight.co.nz).

So, congratulations to the Trust Association and the Methodist Church.

And special congratulations to Brian Turner, a retired Methodist minister from Christchurch (and one-time President of the Methodist Church) for his patient and unrelenting lobbying of both the Trust Association and the Church to divest from Rocket Lab.

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Rocket Lab may once have been a plucky little number 8 wire Kiwi start-up but it is now (and has been for a long time) simply a New Zealand subsidiary of an American company, one which is getting further and further enmeshed into the US military and intelligence war fighting machine.

Rocket Lab no longer pretends to be anything other than an increasingly vital part of that war machine. Recent headlines trumpet that it is ready to "serve the Pentagon" and that it is going to help the US and UK develop hypersonic missiles.

The Methodist Church is well out of it. And the Anti Bases Campaign urges other New Zealand institutions and individuals to likewise divest from Rocket Lab.

Here's our investment tip for them - put your money into something that makes a product that will get the blood off your hands.

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