Fisheries bill unfair, say tribes

By RUTH BERRY, political reporter

The Maori Fisheries Bill was designed on the premise that Maori cannot look after their money, the Treaty Tribes Coalition told a parliamentary committee yesterday.

The coalition was the first of a series of submitters to address the new Fisheries and Other Sea-Related Legislation select committee during what are expected to be lengthy hearings on the controversial bill.

It was introduced to Parliament late last year after more than 12 years of wrangling over how about $750 million worth of fisheries assets should be allocated.

A number of iwi who supported its introduction did so with significant reservations and will be pushing hard for the committee to make changes.

Ngahiwi Tomoana, speaking for the coalition representing iwi opposed to the bill, told the committee that the bill was fundamentally at odds with tikanga.

The coalition believed allocation should always have been done according to iwi coastline size, not population.

It accepted some compromise was necessary, but was fundamentally opposed to the plan to allow Te Ohu Kaimoana the ability to control shares in the new company, Aotearoa Fisheries.

Mr Tomoana told the committee that the coalition agreed the company should be established but said iwi shareholders needed voting powers, denied to them under the bill. Shareholders in other businesses would never be treated as paternalistically, he said.

"The point behind this is, 'you Maoris can't look after your money'."

Ngati Tama spokesman Fred Te Miha said the mandate requirements for iwi were also too prescriptive and could result in unresolved coastline disputes dragging on for years.

Lawyer Donna Hall told the committee the $20 million urban Maori fund set aside in the bill was too small and should be increased to $100 million.

The freshwater fisheries fund also needed to be increased to ensure all Maori benefited from the settlement.

But Te Ohu Kaimoana chairman Shane Jones said the bill represented a finely balanced set of compromises between competing interests.

"Some iwi may use the select committee as an attempt to renegotiate their position and certainly aim to receive more than what they get under our model," he said.

"But with a limited number of fish in the net, to give one iwi more necessarily means another iwi will receive less."

Significant bill changes would delay passing assets to iwi, he said.

Maori Fisheries Bill

* About half the $700 million settlement assets will go to iwi.

* The rest will be managed by a new company, Aotearoa Fisheries.

* Two trusts will promote education and training for Maori and advance Maori freshwater interests.