Govt backs pan-Maori trust for radiowaves

By AUDREY YOUNG and VANESSA BIDOIS

Urban Maori advocates Willie Jackson and John Tamihere have notched up a major victory in winning Government backing for a pan-Maori trust to control a share of the radio spectrum to be used by third-generation cellphones.

But Opposition MPs attacked the plans, outlined by the Government yesterday, as a form of racism.

National MP Maurice Williamson suggested that Maori might next claim a share of "crown minerals, oxygen, starlight and moonlight."

"It is bizarre that this Government should slur the reputation of the police one week with suggestions of racism [over the killing of Steve Wallace at Waitara], then make a radically inequitable decision the next."

Details announced yesterday are vastly different from those Acting Communications Minister Trevor Mallard announced in March.

Since then, Mr Jackson, an Alliance MP, and Mr Tamihere, a Labour MP, have been pressing for a pan-Maori body, in order to avoid dominance by wealthy iwi such as Tainui, Tuwharetoa and Ngai Tahu.

And they wanted one that could negotiate its own joint-venture partner, instead of it going to the highest bidder as originally planned.

Mr Mallard said he met a number of iwi leaders who supported a preferential arrangement for Maori but did not want a pan-Maori approach.

"But I think it is important that this House does not reinforce the advantage that some groups have already had through treaty settlements to widen the gaps between them and urban Maori."

On July 10, an auction begins for 20-year management licences over four blocks of spectrum that can support advanced technology for cellphones and Internet access, known as third-generation technology or 3G.

The new plans will see one of the four blocks reserved exclusively for sale to a Maori trust at a discount price.

Business executive Bill Osborne, a former All Black, will set up the interim trust of nine.

It will comprise nominees of Labour's six Maori electorate MPs; one nominee each from the Maori Women's Welfare League and the Maori Council (but the council is unlikely to participate); and a Government nominee, almost certain to be Mr Osborne as the chairman of the interim trust.

The Herald understands that nominees include lawyer Paul Majurey (nominated by Mr Tamihere); university lecturer and lawyer Pare Nicholas (nominated by Waiariki MP Mita Ririnui); television producer Derek Wooster (nominated by Te Tai Hauauru MP Nanaia Mahuta); businessman Hemi Toia (nominated by Te Tai Tokerau MP Dover Samuels), and Professor Whatarangi Winiata (nominated by Ikaroa-Rawhiti MP Parekura Horomia). The nominee of Te Tai Tonga MP Mahara Okeroa is not yet known.

Professor Winiata is not expected to accept the nomination and is a spokesman for the group that successfully took a claim for the spectrum to the Waitangi Tribunal.

The price of the Maori block will be based on the average price reached for the other three blocks in the auction, less 5 per cent.

The trust will receive $5 million startup funding.

Estimates of the value of all four spectrum blocks range between $50 million and $200 million, Mr Mallard said yesterday.

Mr Tamihere said he was delighted with the plan. "You can't please everyone. Half the natives want a 50 per cent share of everything and that is not do-able."

He said that "unleashing Willie" had been a positive turning point, referring to an attack by Mr Jackson several weeks ago on Mr Mallard's consultation.

Professor Winiata was scathing about the proposal for an allocation of a quarter of the spectrum.

"This is a 21st-century confiscation - the first major confiscation of this century."