On 10th December 2021, UQ Professor Marianne Hanson told a rally opposing the Australian government’s acquisition of nuclear submarines that QSuper had investments in nuclear weapons. Marianne Hanson teaches and researches in the field of international politics. She is also Vice-Chair of ICAN Australia – the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons, and she spoke about the problems that nuclear submarines will pose to our efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons. QSuper’s reply to the professors criticism is to be found in Annual Members’ Meeting 2020/21 which states:
QSuper is mindful of international conventions to which the Australian Government is a signatory. Australia is not currently a signatory to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. … Given our focus on diversification, we do not screen out companies based on participation in the weapons industry more broadly, because this would exclude firms in many other sectors, such as aerospace, avionics, navigation, and communications technologies.
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So if the investments are so small why not divest from nuclear weapons in particular and all weapons in general? QSuper invests $$millions in the arms industry. A Media Relations manager of QSuper provided confirmation of what was in the annual report but repeated QSuper claims that these investments are small. This is a cover up, a smokescreen just like QSuper’s annual report sent to members of the fund.
I asked this senior employee: “If QSuper’s investments were so small, why not get rid of them all together?” He replied: “that is not my area of responsibility“. Therein lies the problem … who will take responsibility for QSuper’s million dollar investments in the weapons industry including dirty bombs and nuclear missiles? Who will take responsibility? The board? Many of those on the board are graduates of the University of Qld or have professional links with UQ.
Brisbane (the capital of Queensland) is listed as a nuclear free zone. Brisbane was declared a nuclear-free zone in 1995 after becoming an inaugural member of the Australian Nuclear Free Zones Secretariat in 1983 at a meeting in the Sydney Town Hall of councils around Australia.
How can that be when QSuper at Central Plaza Three 70 Eagle Street, Brisbane is arranging its finances to support the nuclear weapons industry?
This is true of other government funds like Australia’s future fund investments of over $90m in weapons manufacturer Raytheon whose laser-guided bomb was used in an airstrike on a detention centre in Yemen this month killing nearly 100 civilians. This is despite Australia being party to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga) and is supposed to implement its obligations under this treaty through the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Act 1986.
The question is what are retired workers with QSuper going to do about it? What are students and staff of the University going to do about Boeing?
Are pensioners going to picket QSuper offices and raise members awareness about QSuper’s investment portfolio? Are people going to divest from QSuper?
Where in the capitalist system is there a place for workers to put their hard earned pensions which are not contaminated with weapons of mass destruction and war?
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Currently, the University of Queensland is heavily involved in the weapons industry. Local groups Wage Peace is campaigning next week against Boeing being on campus.
UQ Professor Hanson later called on people who are members of QSuper to write to their super fund asking them to divest from the nuclear industry. What about the Senate of her University who back a partnership with Boeing involved in genocide in West Papua?
The University of Queensland has a long history of involvement with the military industrial complex.
In the 1970s the then Vice Chancellor of the University of Queensland, Zelman Cowen, was happy to endorse the activities of the university regiment that supported the war in Vietnam. Cowen would call Ray Whitrod, the previous head of ASIO, whenever there was any anti-war activity such as occurred on one occasion in 1971, known as the Quang Incident resulting in Cowen several students expelling from the University. The Vice-Chancellors most famous words were ‘I hear what you say’ and then calling his mate, the police Commissioner.
Please leave your comments down below?
Ian Curr
23 December 2021
References
Annual Members’ Meeting
Questions from members
Financial year 2020/2021