Labour calls on Super Fund to sell $140m invested in firms connected to illegal Israeli settlements

The NZ Super Fund, which invests taxpayer funds to pay the nation’s superannuation burden, has a stake worth more than $140 million in firms connected to illegal Israeli settlements.

The firms appear on a list published by the United Nations last June of businesses connected to Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The most recent list of firms in which the Super Fund has a shareholding, published last December, shows it owns a stake in four firms from the UN list, worth $143.2m.

The firms are Airbnb, Booking.com, Motorola Solutions and Alstom. The firms were asked for comment, but none responded. Israel’s permanent mission to the UN In Geneva attacked the list, saying it demonstrated the UN was “a partial actor in the region, serving those pursuing a discriminatory agenda against Israel”.

Labour wants the Government to tell the Super Fund and ACC, the Government’s other major investment fund, to withdraw all investment from companies on the list for being complicit in Israel’s illegal settlements.

A spokesman for the fund said the majority of its investments in global equities and bonds were passively managed, which meant the only way to ensure the fund did not invest in companies on this list would be for the fund to “exclude” those companies.

“We believe that these four companies do not currently meet the exclusion threshold set out in our Sustainable Investment Framework,” the spokesman said.

“One of the factors we evaluate is the proximity or importance of a company’s actions to the relevant activities. We draw a distinction between a company being directly and materially involved in an activity, versus being a supplier of materials in the normal course of business,” they said.

The fund has form in excluding some firms from investment because of connection to the settlements. In March 2021 it decided to exclude five banks because it had good reason to believe they were involved in the actual development and construction of the settlements. The spokesperson said the fund did not see “the same level of connection” to the settlements in the case of these companies.

Labour’s foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker cited a recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling as justification for the Super Fund to move to divest its shareholdings in the companies.

The building of settlements in the occupied West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights was condemned by the ICJ as having breached international law in a July ruling. The ruling means New Zealand should not “render aid or assistance” to the occupation, Parker said.

Labour's foreign affairs spokesperson David Parker wants the Super Fund to sell down its positions in the firms. Photo / Mark Mitchell

“This is the least the Government can do to show its support for the ICJ and its opposition to what the ICJ has called ‘the sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying power’,” Parker said.

“I don’t think New Zealanders will feel good about their money being invested in companies that are complicit in the building and maintenance of Israel’s illegal settlements,” Parker said.

“The National Government is sitting on its hands and not taking action on Gaza, despite the horrific violence against civilians and humanitarian crisis that is continuing there.

“We have called on the Government to take action in a number of ways; by recognising Palestine diplomatically, by creating a special visa for Palestinians with family in New Zealand, and by banning government procurement from the illegal settlements. Still, they’re doing nothing,” he said.

The ICJ’s July ruling declared Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories were illegal and states should co-operate to bring an end to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Reading the findings of a 15-judge panel, ICJ president Nawaf Salam said the “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law”.

Parker said the Government needed to walk the talk regarding its statements that it supported the “international rules-based order”.

“Decisions of the ICJ are an important part of that. The ICJ ruling is not a suggestion. It is the application of international law,” he said.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.