When Virtue Signalling Goes Wrong

Jacinda Ardern’s Kiwsaver Invests in Oil & Gas, Mining, Nuclear Power, Military Industries, Gambling and Alcohol.

by Cam Slater February 19, 2021

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is big on virtue signalling, and now that media have taken a look at her Kiwisaver accounts, that virtue signalling makes her look like the world’s biggest hypocrite.

While she was criticising Air New Zealand for making a buck servicing engines for the Saudi Navy, her Kiwisaver fund was profiting from investing in weapons manufacturers:

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s KiwiSaver provider ANZ has launched a review after being challenged for investing in three companies that supplied weapons to the Saudi Arabian military during the conflict in Yemen.

Ardern ordered an inquiry into how Air New Zealand came to be servicing engines for the Saudi Navy saying the deal did not pass the “sniff test”.

The war in Yemen is recognised as an international humanitarian crisis, and Air New Zealand has now cancelled the deal with the Saudi navy.

But even as Ardern was speaking on the Air New Zealand deal, her KiwiSaver provider, in which she has had money since at least 2015, owned shares in Britain’s BAE Systems, and two United States companies Textron and Raytheon, all three of which have supplied weapons to the Saudi military since Saudi Arabia became involved in the Yemen war.

The prime minister has been approached for comment.

ANZ said it had launched a review of its investments.

“Given the New Zealand public’s view on recent matters related to Saudi Arabia and their involvement in the war in Yemen, ANZ NZ Investments has a review underway of any holdings we might have with companies that may supply components to their military,” ANZ said in a statement.

An analysis of the three main ANZ /Kiwisaver Funds shows that the problem for virtue signalling MPs goes much further. Below are some of the problematic investments that should be causing problems for the virtue signallers. Their investments in military industries are wider than originally reported:

Military:

• BAE Systems – makers of missile systems, military aircraft and UAVs, artillery and tanks
• Oshkosh – maker of specialist military vehicles including Armoured Personnel Carriers
• Textron – aircraft
• Raytheon – researches, develops, and manufactures advanced technology products in the aerospace and defense industry, including aircraft engines, avionics, aerostructures, cybersecurity, missiles, air defense systems, and drones
• Howmet Aerospace – manufactures components for jet engines, fasteners and titanium structures for aerospace applications
• Rheinmetall AG – Defence arm produces equipment and systems for government, security and military ground, air and naval forces. Products include tanks (Leopard 2 and M1 Abrahms), armoured fighting vehicles, artillery, cannons and amunition
• Boeing -fighters, bombers and military aircraft including helicopters, UAVs and missiles

This is all rather embarrassing for Jacinda Ardern, but also Chloe Swarbrick, who is doing an awful lot of explaining on Twitter:…READ THE REST AT THE BFD

Martin comments: Outstanding work Cam! Sadly the MSM Leftist Army will rush to her defence by ignoring this story. Thankfully we at Uncensored believe in exposing corruption and hypocrisy. I urge readers to follow the link and read the full article. Quite an interesting list.