Harawira Hone: Ethical Investment (Crown Financial Institutions) Bill — First Reading 
Harawira Hone: Ethical Investment (Crown Financial Institutions) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:665;Page:13010] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
:  
Tena tatou katoa. It is amazing that what goes around comes around and in this case that some seriously dodgy investments made by Crown financial institutions under the Labour Government and rigorously defended by it when challenged are now coming under fire from—surprise surprise—Labour now that it is in Opposition. Only a few years back the Labour Government provoked a frenzy of condemnation from the press gallery and political pundits alike when it was revealed that the Superannuation Fund was linked to companies that invested in cluster munitions and nuclear weapons production. The Superannuation Fund is just one of this Government’s five Crown financial institutions all of which have that nice ring of being sound conservative socially responsible investment options—but apparently that is not so. The Superannuation Fund was mentioned earlier by David Bennett as being run by a Crown entity called the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation which has had investments in whaling anti-personnel landmines the tobacco industry and cluster munitions for God’s sake. To its credit though that entity has dumped its tobacco stocks based on the set of international guidelines on environmental social and governance issues. Indeed the Maori Party agrees wholeheartedly with the proposal of this Ethical Investment (Crown Financial Institutions) Bill which is that all five Crown financial institutions sign up to a commitment on ethical investment based on socially responsible and environmentally sustainable development. 
The guardians’ decision to dump its tobacco investment explains perfectly why we support this bill so strongly. Everyone knows that the Maori Party has been a key driver behind setting up the Maori Affairs Committee inquiry into the tobacco industry. Tobacco is directly responsible for the deaths of about 5000 New Zealanders every year more than 600 of whom are Maori. It is responsible for billions upon billions of dollars of indirect cost to this country every single year through health costs and the loss of productivity. 
A few weeks back thanks to the support of Action on Smoking and Health we had the honour of having Dr Jeffrey Wigand come before our inquiry. Dr Wigand as people will know was played by our Academy Award winner Russell Crowe in a memorable movie called  
The Insider 
 a story about Dr Wigand’s time of working within the tobacco industry and becoming a key witness against that industry in multibillion-dollar court cases all across the United States of America. Dr Wigand told us heaps of stuff including the facts that the tobacco industry had solid data on which to base its cigarette sales to different ethnic groups that its lawyers rewrote tobacco company reports to make cigarettes look safe that flavouring was added to make cigarettes taste nice that chemicals were added to make the nicotine addiction work faster and that tobacco companies specifically targeted young people to replace the older consumers who had died off from tobacco diseases. That is what I mean when I say that the tobacco industry is an example of the kinds of unethical investment we are all well rid of. 
Mark Peck a former Labour MP who was never able to get any real action on stopping tobacco has gone on to become the director of the Smokefree Coalition. He said something that I really agree with: “There is nothing good about the tobacco industry. It has lied about the harm its product causes to smokers lied about the addictiveness of tobacco products and lied about the harm caused by second-hand smoke. Because of these lies millions of people have died.” 
The Maori Party welcomes this new resolve from Labour to set some benchmarks in making it morally untenable for taxpayer funds to be invested in projects that are neither socially responsible nor environmentally sustainable. We are happy to support this bill. Kia ora.