NZ First’s Shane Jones joins forces with Australian MPs to fight ‘woke’ banks

NZ First MP Shane Jones attacked the Australian-owned banks. Photo / Mark Mitchell

NZ First’s Shane Jones has joined the global fight against “woke” banks, firing off at several banks’ attempts to reduce lending and services to fossil fuel businesses in The Australian this morning.

Jones told broadsheet that Australian banks, whose New Zealand subsidiaries dominate the New Zealand market, must stop “being driven by unelected, UN-orientated climate apostles”.

“The majority of our banks in New Zealand are owned by Aussies. I can’t stress heavily enough the fact that the Aussie-owned banks spirit out of New Zealand inordinately large profits and now they’re imposing woke-riddled, expensive, deadweight costs on our productive sector,” Jones told The Australian.

He has lent his support to an attempt by some in the Australian Liberal-National Opposition that would aim to force banks back to offering services to fossil fuel industries.

The Herald understands, NZ First is looking at a members bill that would attempt to achieve something similar.

Banks around the world are grappling with the effects of climate change, with some deciding to limit their exposure to fossil fuel industries either to reduce the risk of stranded assets, or to try to direct capital to areas better for the environment. This has seen banks become a cultural battleground.

In New Zealand, some petrol stations have found themselves in difficulty with one bank, BNZ saying that it is withdrawing lending services from the sector on a “case by case” basis.

Banks’ role in the fight to reduce emissions has been in the spotlight this year, largely driven by political turmoil in North America. In 2021, at the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, banks from around the world signed up to a pledge to drive emissions to net zero. It was hailed as a monumental achievement as it would marshal some of the most powerful institutions in global finance to reduce emissions. It had the backing of former Bank of England and Bank of Canada Governor, Mark Carney and some of the largest banks from around the world joined.

By 2025, however, the corporate mood had shifted and the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) found itself caught up in the backlash against Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion - efforts made by business to achieve social aims.

Within just a month, America’s six largest banks have left the NZBA, including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citi, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley. Four large banks in Canada have also left the alliance, as Carney, now a candidate to succeed the unpopular Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister, has seen his name tethered to a deeply unpopular carbon tax, with the opposition dubbing him “Carbon Tax Carney”

The Australian parents of New Zealand’s banks are still members of the NZBA. However, The Australian reported that the NZBA is looking to loosen targets under pressure from British and European Banks.

A group of eight MPs from the Liberal-National coalition called on ANZ, CBA, Westpac and NAB to leave the alliance, saying it “risks hurting the competitiveness and access to finance for Australian mining, manufacturing and farming businesses”.

Federated Farmers is strongly critical of the NZBA, and has called on the Commerce Commission to investigate it, saying it is operating like a cartel.

Liberal leader Peter Dutton, who has a good chance of becoming Prime Minister by the end of the year, said earlier this month that banks should not discriminate against businesses in critical industries.

Attacking banks as “woke”, Dutton said “banks are there to provide finance to creditworthy customers”.

“If a business is legal and it has the ability to service the loan and it’s creditworthy, then the bank should not be discriminating on any other basis,” he said

Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the Press Gallery since 2018.