David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

The Greens reject this motion. It is deeply misguided. I'd love to see a government wholeheartedly commit to solar and wind. I'd love to see a government that rejects in full the nuclear industry, including nuclear reactors on Australian and US submarines. I'd love to see a government that would actually get us to meet the Paris climate targets. But that government is not the Albanese government. In fact, if you want to look at the Albanese Labor government's influence and the connection with some of the superannuation funds, look at how they have continued the coalition's goal to make Australia a top 10 global weapons exporter—an obscene plan. Look at how many funds in the superannuation industry are supporting that unethical goal. The militarisation of Australia and becoming an arm of the US's military industry have a corrosive effect on this place and on our society. That's also true when it comes to superannuation. No better example can be found than in the recent reporting by the ABC about nominally ethical superannuation programs that are, in fact, investing in foreign arms companies and some of the least ethical weapons on the planet, such as nuclear weapons and white phosphorus.

Australians who wanted to invest in a peaceful and ethical future have, without their knowledge, seen their superannuation funds invest millions and millions of dollars in some of the worst weapons companies on the planet and in some of the most unethical human-rights-abusing weapons that are created.

All those voters who told the Albanese government at the last election they wanted a different, more compassionate government haven't got what they've asked for. They haven't got what they've invested in. Instead they've got a bunch of warmongers who are happy to carry on Morrison's legacy. This is most clearly seen at a political level in the AUKUS mess—a complete embrace by the Labor Party of the nuclear weapons industry and the nuclear cycle in our political space. The government sets the standard, and the standard that this government sets and their very low standard on weapons and unethical investment have been embraced by the superannuation industry.

The ABC are now reporting that so-called ethical super funds have holdings of more than $26 million in shares for companies involved in nuclear weapons, including BAE Systems, Textron, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon Technologies. I doubt anyone who ticked the 'ethical' box wanted to see their superannuation funds invested in making doomsday nuclear weapons. Some of the so-called ethical super programs invested in companies like Rheinmetall, Hanwha and Austal. Do you know what those companies have in common? They in turn invest in the Labor Party. These are weapons companies that have added some $2 million to the ALP in public donations over the last decade. So, in a roundabout way, those people who are trying to invest in socially conscious superannuation were not only seeing their investments end up in the hands of some of the global bottom feeders of the weapons industry but those weapons companies in turn have handed the money over to the ALP in a deeply unethical moral spiral that both the weapons manufacturers and the ALP are involved in.

We've heard of 'pinkwashing' and 'greenwashing'. Now we have something new brought to you by the ALP and some parts of the superannuation industry—'war-washing'. That's where they seek to take money from well-minded people and take votes from well-minded people who want to end global war, who don't want to see investments in the nuclear arms industry and don't want to see investments in the global arms trade, and instead they get superannuation funds that throw their money at those industries, and a government that supports them and then takes money from those very same industries in turn.

This motion suggests a conspiracy between superannuation providers and the government that does not exist, but what does exist is a government that's setting the lowest moral standards so that others fall—moral standards based on bedrock. Why would superannuation providers not invest in arms dealers when this government's own investment scheme, the Future Fund, is also investing in arms dealers? Some of those arms dealers include Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms manufacturer that is currently profiting from a genocide. This government has set the standard at a new low.