Dunedin protesters have chopped their ties to a multinational bank, which they say is enabling the "worst of the worst" to mine for fossil fuels in New Zealand.
At a protest in central Dunedin yesterday, three former ANZ customers closed their bank accounts, asking the bank not to provide services to Bathurst Resources, the country’s largest specialist coal company.
Protest organiser and 350 Aotearoa campaigner Adam Currie, of Dunedin, said more than 50 people had turned up to protest against ANZ "enabling" the company, which had sought to fast-track a coal mine at the West Coast’s Denniston Plateau.
"We know the banks do care about their social licence, and we know it's not hard for ANZ to drop the worst of the worst, those fossil fuel expansionists that are killing the climate that we all rely on.
"It's nothing to do with the service that ANZ provides. I've always been happy with it, but I just can't stomach my money continuing to invest in the fossil fuel industry," she said.
"It's just not something that we need here in New Zealand or anywhere."
Fellow protester Richard Naylor also closed his account, saying he had banked with ANZ since it took over the Post Office Savings Bank in the late 1980s.
"We should all be changing to local banks," he said.
"We continue to provide necessary transactional banking services [such as payroll and company credit cards] to some customers in that sector."
Similar protests were held in major centres across the country.
Seven police officers and one security guard were at the Dunedin protest.
