BNZ & Westpac Equal Winners

Roger Award For The Worst Transnational Corporation In New Zealand In 2005

Toll 3rd; Telecom 4th; Govt - Special Award For Protection Of Profit & Privilege At The Expense Of Public Health

The full 20+ page Judges’Report is available at www.cafca.org.nz Follow the Roger Award Links.

The eight finalists were:

Telecom
Westpac
Toll
BNZ
Comalco
Guardian Healthcare
Merck Sharp and Dohme
British American Tobacco.

The criteria for judging were by assessing the transnational that had the most negative impact in each or all of the following categories:

Economic Dominance - monopoly, profiteering, tax dodging, cultural imperialism.
People - unemployment, impact on tangata whenua, impact on women, impact on children, abuse of workers/conditions, health and safety of workers and the public, cultural imperialism.
Environment - environmental damage, abuse of animals.
Political interference - cultural imperialism, running an ideological crusade.

The judges were:

John Minto, from Auckland, a veteran political activist, National Chairperson of the Quality Public Education Coalition and a spokesperson for Global Peace and Justice Auckland;
Maire Leadbeater, from Auckland, a veteran anti-nuclear and human rights activist, current spokesperson for the Indonesia Human Rights Committee;
Laila Harre, from Auckland, National Secretary of the National Distribution Union and former Cabinet Minister;
Mary-Ellen O’Connor, from Nelson, a senior educationalist and political activist.

For full details of the Roger Award, go to www.cafca.org.nz and follow the Links.

The Roger Award is organized by the Christchurch-based groups, Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa and GATT Watchdog and is supported by Christian World Service.

Previous winners: Telecom, Tranz Rail (three times), Juken Nissho, Carter Holt Harvey, Monsanto and TransAlta.

The BNZ and Westpac are the Roger Award’s first co-winners. They won because of tax avoidance, profiteering, bullying of the Government and banking authorities, blatant attempts to lure Kiwis into debt, and treatment of their workers. To quote the Judges’ Report: “…many of the practices they have adopted also apply to the other two large Australian-owned banks - ASB and ANZ - and had they also been nominated then the likelihood is that all four would have been joint winners… Together these banks constitute a ‘gang of four’ wielding huge power and influence over the NZ economy and operating solely in their own interests rather than that of their accountholders, employees and the wider community”.

Toll was third because it refuses to heed the pleas of the people of Marlborough to alleviate the environmental damage caused by its ferries. And it bullied the Government into paying to upgrade the rail network of which it has exclusive use. “(Toll) takes all the profits while the people of New Zealand take the losses!” Telecom was fourth because of profiteering and shoddy broadband service. “For 15 years now this private monopoly has …made more than $15 billion in profits - most going to wealthy shareholders overseas. The judges are appalled that this national scandal continues…”.

They awarded the Minister of Health, on behalf of the Government, a Special Award for Protection of Profit and Privilege at the Expense of Public Health, because three of the finalists – Guardian Healthcare, British American Tobacco and Merck, Sharp and Dohme - come from the health sector. “Each… is involved in practices which exploit the most vulnerable in our community. It is clear these practices are the result of poor Government policy and lack of commitment to protect New Zealanders”.

Murray Horton
for the organizers
CAFCA & GATT Watchdog

Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa
Box 2258, Christchurch, New Zealand
cafca@chch.planet.org.nz
www.cafca.org.nz