To the directors of UniSaver Limited:

We, staff and members of Aotearoa New Zealand’s universities, write this letter to express our concerns about the investment strategy and fund holdings of the UniSaver superannuation scheme. We urge you to review them to bring them in line with international humanitarian law.

It has come to our attention 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. Alongside assets held in Israeli government bonds and Israeli banks (see note 1), UniSaver’s reported holdings also include, but are not limited to, assets in the following companies (see note 2):

• Elbit Systems

• ICL Group

• Caterpillar Inc

• Hewlett Packard Co

• Palantir Technologies

It has been well documented by numerous human rights organisations, including the The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, that these companies, and others listed in UniSaver’s reports, are complicit in the maintenance of Israel’s Apartheid system, its military occupation of the Palestinian territories, and/or its ongoing genocide in Gaza (see note 3). 

It is also the case that many of these companies have become subject to growing economic isolation through Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) as an international consensus forms over the illegality and immorality of their activities (see note 4). On both human rights and fiduciary grounds, UniSaver is obligated to revise and review its holdings in these entities.

As members of UniSaver and of Aotearoa New Zealand’s university community, we demand that UniSaver Limited:

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.

As members of UniSaver and of Aotearoa’s university community, we denounce the Israeli state’s policies of Apartheid, genocide, and military occupation, and we refuse to be complicit with these policies in any way. We insist that UniSaver Limited honour its responsibilities under international law and its own commitments to ethical investments, and to abide by the mandate given to it by us, the community of workers and staff of Aotearoa’s universities. 

Notes:

1. For a detailed explanation of the involvement of the banks in UniSaver’s portfolio in illegal operations in the West Bank, see Human Rights Watch (2017). For details on the NZ Superfund’s decision to exclude these banks from their portfolio, see Superfund (2021).

2. A breakdown of investments of concern in the UniSaver portfolio, which outlines each holding’s connection to Israeli occupation or military operations, can be found here. 

3. The current genocide has also been characterised as scholasticide, the targeting of the Palestinian education system. All universities in Gaza have been destroyed and hundreds of scholars, students and administrators have been murdered. A collective of academics and university administrators from Gaza have specifically called on fellow university workers to resist the scholasticide and to support the rebuilding of Gaza’s education system in material and tangible ways.

4. There is also a broader campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. More information can be found here.