Managing Director National Australia Bank
Dear Sir,
I wish to protest at your bank’s financing of the National Party of Victoria. The Australian Electoral Commission website indicates that the National Bank was the major donor of this party in 2012.
This political party has a strong record of denying the science of climate change, doing its best to create confusion on the issue and opposing all but the most token gestures to ameliorate or adapt to the threat.
Your donations make you complicit with these actions which are against the interests of your customers, your employees and your shareholders.
I also note that the financing of the fossil fuel industry is coming under greater scrutiny. It is becoming clear that only a small fraction of fossil fuel reserves can be developed without making large areas of the planet uninhabitable.
It follows that if a company’s value (and support from the finance industry) is based on reserves of coal, coal seam, gas, shale oil etc. then this value is illusory and is likely to become a ‘stranded asset’. On this matter I have enclosed a news article “Bursting the Carbon Bubble” by Michael Green (The Age 15.2.13) which you may have missed.
I am sure that you are closely considering investments of this kind and note that this is a further incentive not to donate to a political party that denies the current science.
Peter Gardner
PS I have been a customer of your bank for more than 50 years