“It isn’t enough to stop investments in illegal weapons - Kiwisaver and NZ Super must stop all investment in weapons companies and those who profit from war,” said Eliana Darroch, member of Auckland Peace Action.

“Just announced changes to Kiwisaver rules that all default investment funds exclude investment in illegal weapons is a positive development. However the reality is that most deaths and injuries don’t occur from illegal weapons but from legal conventional weapons. Small arms are responsible for 90% of civilian casualties from weapons.”

“It doesn’t make sense to decide it is acceptable to profit from the wars and deaths resulting from some weapons, but not those from another class of weapons.”

“Most New Zealanders do not want to contribute to global conflict, yet when our retirement funds are directly related to the profit of weapons companies, that is exactly what we are doing.”

“The UN Secretary-General has launched a disarmament initiative given that ‘We are living in dangerous times. Cold War tensions are back, global military spending is at its highest and protracted conflicts are causing unspeakable human suffering.’

“New Zealand has an opportunity to be a real global leader, and end all weapons investment.”

“The investment we need as a society is into our resilience to climate change, into our health and education systems, into Māori, youth and the natural environment. There are tremendous opportunities when we aspire to actively build peaceful, tolerant, healthy and just communities instead of seeking to maximise profits at the expense of human life.”

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On The Skewed Media Coverage Of Gaza

Now that he’s back as Foreign Minister, maybe Winston Peters should start reading the MFAT website which is currently celebrating the 25th anniversary of how Kiwis alerted the rest of the world to the genocide in Rwanda. How times have changed ...

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