Anti-War Aotearoa targets New Zealand investments in Palantir

PRESS RELEASE FROM Anti-War Aotearoa (AWA)

11 June 2026

NZ Super Fund must divest from companies involved in war crimes.

Anti-War Aotearoa is calling on the New Zealand Super Fund to divest from Palantir, a US tech company deeply implicated in A.I.-driven kill programmes in Gaza, Lebanon and other countries. Palantir features prominently in United Nations Reports on war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Fund currently has $140,000,000 invested in Palantir which is owned by New Zealand citizen Peter Thiel.

“Its technology forms part of the digital backbone of many automated targeting programmes used by the US and Israel to kill thousands of Palestinian, Iranian and Lebanese civilians,” Auckland lawyer and AWA spokesperson Gabriella Brayne, says. “We are concerned that the New Zealand Super Fund has made substantial capital gains off the back of a company complicit in gross violations of international law and human rights.”

Some of these programmes, such as “Where’s Daddy?” and Lavender, deliberately hit “targets” (doctors, journalists and Hamas fighters, for example) upon arrival at their family homes. Palantir features prominently in the UN report The Economy of Genocide.

Under New Zealand law, the NZSF must not invest in businesses that would cause reputational damage to New Zealand. The Palantir investments is one of many examples of the Guardians ignoring this moral and legal imperative.

“New Zealanders do not want our Superfund to make money from killing men, women, children and babies in foreign lands. Profiting from companies at the heart of wars of aggression and the Gaza genocide is a stain on New Zealand. This needs to change now,” says AWA member Eugene Doyle.

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa won a major victory in the New Zealand High Court earlier this year when it sought a review of the fund’s compliance with New Zealand law, specifically requirements around ethical investing.

We have written to the Guardians of the New Zealand Super Fund demanding that they fully implement the May 2026 ruling of the New Zealand High Court. The court found that NZSF had breached its own rules and had established an investment framework which was “unreasonable and unlawful”.

We expect far higher standards from our Super Fund.