The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force in January 2021. The treaty makes nuclear weapons illegal, just like chemical and biological weapons, cluster munitions, and landmines – but many Australian super funds have not yet updated their policy and practice.
Quit Nukes, with assistance from The Australia Institute, has updated its 2021 report with a re-assessment of the equities holdings of fourteen major Australia super funds in twenty nuclear weapons companies.
The report finds that in 2023 fourteen major Australian superannuation funds invested $3.4 billion in the companies that produce the worst weapons of mass destruction. Australian Super invested $1.5 billion in nuclear weapons companies; UniSuper and HESTA invested over $200 million each.
All Australian super funds need to adopt controversial weapons exclusion policies that include nuclear weapons in the definition of controversial weapons, and to exclude NW companies across the whole of their portfolios, with a zero-revenue threshold in order to comply with evolving global norms, international law and member expectations.
Quit Nukes is an initiative pf MAPW and ICAN Australia.