18 January 2007

Should the ACT Government be investing ethically?

| johnboy
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[First filed: January 17, 2007 @ 12:58]

The Canberra Times has a piece on a huge ruckus surroundng the ACTPS’ pension fund putting $9 million into three tobacco companies: Altria Group, Japan Tobacco and Swedish Match.

As I see it there are a few seperate issues here:

1) What’s wrong with tobacco companies?

2) Is there a moral difference between direct and indirect investment?

3) Should the ACT Government be willing to take a loss in the market in order to promote companies that act ethically?

4) Why does Mr. Stanhope say it’s all too hard when the market is crammed full of ethical funds?

Your thoughts?

UPDATED: The Canberra Times has followed up with a story on all the other areas the ACT invests:

arms manufacturers [including cluster bomb makers], the nuclear power industry, gambling and the scandal-plagued AWB

No wonder tobacco troubled them not at all.

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The only responsibility the ACT Govt has is to ensure the highest return for its super holders…within reason

What a crock – You’r giving this fiasco more oxygen that it deserves JB. Unless I am mistaken and have missed a recent (say last 15 years) equity float of a tobbacco company there’s absolutely nothing in this. Of course that wont stop the hapless schmuck dogooders wringing their misguided little hands about those big bad nasty Big Tobbacco shares

It’s always possible that he’s noticed the voting stock involved, and has decided it gives him more chances to grandstand…

Of course, seeing as he’d then be playing with his retirement fund, and the retirement funds of everyone who works with him, he might decide this is one of those instances when he should keep the angry voice under control.

I’m less appalled by the actual investments than the standard duckshoving over responsibility.

Stanhope said it’s not HIS place to decide where investments are purchased with what was formerly my super funds, I don’t recall anyone checking with me how I wanted my super funds invested.

Who decides? ACTTreasury, that’s who. They are answerable to whom? [Think hard]

And now Stanhope decides to investigate? So he might be going to intervene? He suddenly has that capacity? That is suddenly appropriate?

Pffffffffffft!

More appropriate to say you’re buying a share in the house in which the murderer is still living and bolstering the value of his own remaining share.

If the ACT Government was voting its stock to change the policies of the companies involved then your analogy would hold more water.

But if that was the case I suspect we’d have heard something about it by now.

Poptop, if your fund is buying shares on the market, you’re not funding tobacco and cluster bombs.

To use a lame analogy that doesn’t bear too deep a scrutiny ;), if a murderer built a house 50 years ago and sold it, and it got sold again and again, and you buy it today, did you fund the murderer? No, you funded the current owner of the house. Same if you buy shares, you’re buying off the current owner of the shares, the company doesn’t get a cent of your money..

I was an ACT Public Servant for many years, until I jagged a package. Never in that time did anyone inform me I was funding tobacco and cluster bombs to secure my financial future.

Silly me, it didn’t enter my head to enquire. At least the ACT Public Servants who may be as blind as I was can now be aware of the issue and make some decisions as to whether they are happy with what “their” fund is doing with their money.

As an ex financial planner, I have to say that the “non ethical” investments have higher returns than the supposed “ethical”.

As long as I’m not investing in a sweatshop in Taiwan, to be honest, I’d rather be investing in something that was actually going to return! And it is none of the general public’s business, only the members of the superfund!

Hey wow Jellen, what’s this?

Would that be a story I wrote just yesterday having a go at a Liberal?

So are you just illiterate? Or maliciously misleading?

“never (as far as I have seen) to “question” anything propounded by Liberals”

Maybe you need to learn how to read then you ignorant moron.

We’ve been labelled an “anti-liberal website” by no less than the ABC.

But hey, you’ve been here 5 minutes so you’re obviously an expert.

Agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that not everything comes down to Liberal v Labor Simbo. The point I was making was that it seems to me rather inconsistent to only raise “questions” that are critical of a Labor govt, never (as far as I have seen) to “question” anything propounded by Liberals and then to beg off the conservative tag. To labour the point, while it may be the mark of hard core libertarianism to criticise Stalinist recommendations for sunscreen use, it is certainly not consistent with that supposedly ‘libertarian’ position to “question” the ACTPS super fund’s choice of investments. Seems to be a funny kind of libertarian that would suggest that individual investors should have their retirement savings subject to the heavy yoke of Stalinist rules dictating what constitues an acceptable and/or non-acceptable investments?

It’s also worth saying that i know plenty of dyed in the wool Liberals who wouldn’t touch a portfolio as dirty as the one described.

Yep, Jellen, as has been frequently noted, he’s not a liberal, he’s a libertarian.

Now, libertarian’s have an awful lot of holes in their ideology too, but simplifying things to “you must be a liberal or a labour supporter” does tend to distort the rich spectrum of political beliefs that actually exist in the world.

Yeah, asking questions makes me a young liberal, you tool.

Oh right none of our business we silly voters, how dare we question the great and good!

Uh – why is this anyone’s business but those whose money it is? Pigdog and Jemmy – spot on. If you are an ACT public servant you might have a right to a say in this but not otherwise. We might just as well make adverse comment on where the Commonwealth PS super is invested, or where Telstra employees’ super is invested, or where AWB’s employees’ super is invested and the list goes on. I detect a lack of ideological consistency in JB criticising the (perhaps too) free market actions of the Stanhope govt today and yet calling Katy “Stalinist” the other day for suggesting we use sunscreen. Do you see the world through royal blue young Liberal glasses JB?

So where are Mr Stanhope’s own superannuation investments squirrelled away then??

I have an investment in Tattersalls as I see it as the best way I can get back my taxes that are used to make the social security payments that are wasted in poker machines (there is some research available that shows an increase in poker machine revenues following the introduction of the baby bonus). I don’t necessarily like poker machines but I don’t see why I should support the dumb people who use them.

That’s how we got rid of rabbits out of the farm. A wonderful device called a (funnily enough) Rid-a-Rabbit. You stick an LPG hose in a downwind burrow hole and a spark probe in an upwind entrance. When the gas clouds up out of all the holes, hit the spark button and whoomp. More the asphixiation and the shock wave that did the bunnies in than the fire.
Stuff a bunch of fertiliser bags down each hole (to stop any bunnies still outside from digging it out again), back fill, all done.
Sounds nasty, but a lot better on the critters than RCD and mixo…

Hold your breath and try to fart as long as you are not in a flammable environment – it’ll give you an extra minute or two.

So…investing in oxygen is ethical?

asphyxiaton was also the primary cause of death in the dresden firestorm.

many dead non-fried people were found in cellars, bunkers etc.

When I was in College, I did an assignment on the withdrawl from Vietnam… Interesting story about Daisy Cutters (the bombs used to clear-fell an area for helo landing) – where an entire crate (about 21) were dropped on a VC tunnel complex. Most of the 200+ that died were asphixiated rather than burnt.

…and I have waited over 15 years to be able to tell that one 😉

Hard to believe what our troops came home to, huh… Make sure you kick your Mum and Dad if they were involved…

he he he… “loadmaster” 😉

Thumper:

“loadmaster demonstrated how safe it was by dipping his finger in the stuff then licking it off.”

I will NEVER slag an MSDS again!!! (swear to God)

Ethics and mulla are pretty much mutually exclusive investment strategies. Most companies will put a halt on “ethics” when it starts visibly eating into their bottom line – which could affect share price and subsequently the ‘C’ level bonuses.

Interesting agent orange story for you, if you’ll pardon the digression…
Used you work with a guy who was on the agent orange team in Vietnam. He told us they would give the soldiers all the drill the safety, but as soon as they turned around, the soldiers would be spraying each other with it to cool themselves down…

Hey, leave Monsanto alone – they gave the world Agent Orange!

PS. I’ll be pushing for RiotACT to only invest in clusterbombs that bio-degrade after 4 weeks

…and Monsanto – ripping off third world countries wherever they can just to turn an easy buck…

There was a doco on SBS a few months ago about Nokia’s operations in China (dead boring doco, however…). Nokia claims to be an ethical company, but the doco made it very clear that (their Chinese op anyhow) ain’t. So how *DO* you tell?

simple, if you want a superfund to invest ethically you need to make it part of the constitution and have the members vote it in

yes they may not make as big a profit as other funds but thats the choice people make for going ethical, similar to buying organic foods

as todays society gets more aware and desires more warm fuzzy feelings they’ll start investing in more ethical organisations, making it a growth industry in itself

Thats a bloody silly investment anyway tobacco companies have been one of the worst performing sectors on the share market for that last decade.

They should show their enviromental credentials and invest in “Soylent Green”

There have been plenty of studies that show so-called ethical investing reduces returns (if you work in the industry, ask Barra for a copy of theirs). It’s because it reduces the number of industries you can invest in, forcing you to buy in industries you otherwise wouldn’t. As well, the fund managers’ costs are higher to manage it (more work involved), so net return to the investor is lower.

If I was a superannuant, I’d be pretty annoyed if my boss started to dictate the investment policy of my fund and forced me to accept less money for my retirement. In fact, it would actually be illegal.

I’m a recent smoke giver-upper and still fight to sit downwind of my smoky friends, so can’t comment sensibly on tobacco as an investment. Just give it all to me!

But Mr Stanhope considering that governments should not become involved in managing taxpayers’ investments, which he said were rightly kept “at arm’s length” from the Government? These are merely cash investments. He seems to have a completely different yardstick for getting involved with most of our other asset-based investments.

Please explain.

Deadmandrinking5:35 pm 17 Jan 07

God, if you hate us smokers so much, can’t you just wait for lung cancer to kill us.

He’s from Glasgow Has.

barking toad3:50 pm 17 Jan 07

Tobacco is legal whether you smoke or not.

And please dont’t ask the town council to make investment decisions.

Or ethical decisions.

Screw ethical investment, how about smart investment…

It’s not very wise to be investing your hard earned beer credits into something liable to get sued for millions of euros every couple of years.

Even if they win, they still lose on account of its your investment dollar propping up all those fat lawyers bills.

VYBerlinaV8_now with_added_grunt3:21 pm 17 Jan 07

What the money is invested in should be determined by the risk profile of the ‘investor’, and the desired return on the investment.

As was pointed out previously, true ethical investing is difficult to assure, so we might as well get the best returns possible within the risk profile.

And cars kill a lot more people every year than atomic warheads.

As do falling coconuts.

James-T-Kirk2:42 pm 17 Jan 07

Ahhh, Ethical investment – kind of like buying green energy (Especially in the ACT, where most of our energy comes from Hydro..)

In any case, we can have the warm fuzzies about where the money is initially invested, but there is *no* way that the end of the investment chain can be ensured – so one of the companies, is likely to be investing in a company, who invests in a company, who makes atomic warheads!

Which is pretty much how you pronounce “cheroot”, nyssa, in my Gentlemen’s Club…

i think that should make efforts to invest so that they make a profit and pay the returns they need for their membership.

Oh and it’s pronounced “sh-root”.

It’s Dr Shroot terubo. He’s my doctor and hates smoking. I’m trying to quit but he doesn’t ram it down my throat. Which is a pleasant change.

Sad.
I think they should make efforts to invest ethically.

As long as the super fund investment account keeps ticking over, providing ongoing investment for those in the fund, I do not see this as a moral dilemma at all.

Secondly, for the govt to audit all of their investments for compliance to ethical guidelines it would create another arm of the ACT PS that really isnt needed.
However this does make a few of the CM’s ‘big picture’ (shall we say) rantings appear to on thin ice.

Oh, and I’m sure that all those ACTPS smokers who’ve been forced outdoors into cold and windy corners will be pleased to hear about this investment.

Har! I note the president of Canberra Action on Smoking and Health is a “Mr Shroot”. That can only be pronounced as “cheroot”. Most unfortunate.

Yaawwwwwwn.

Since it is the ACTPS super fund, it should be up to the members what the fund invests in, not their employer.

And on point 3, how you determine which companies act ethically?

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