Every year about this time, howls of outrage arise over the fees paid to members of the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission. The protests flow naturally from the release of the commission's annual report. Four years ago, Sandra Lee, then a deputy leader of the Alliance, accused the commissioners of "creaming it" while Maori languished in dole queues. Three years ago, Willie Jackson, then an urban Maori leader, described the amount the commissioners received in honorariums and consultancy fees as outrageous. Even now, after a change of government, the song remains the same.
At the commission's annual meeting during the weekend, Annette Sykes, a Rotorua lawyer, said the near-$330,000 a former commissioner received in annual fees in the September 2000 year was "obscene." Like Sandra Lee, she compared the sum with the lot of the average Maori.
But, as before, there were also those still prepared to justify the fees, even though no details are ever provided on how they are earned. The message this year was of the mountain of work some commissioners had done on the sale of Brierley Investments' half-share in Sealord. In past years, the fees were attributed to attendance at hui to discuss the distribution of assets controlled by the commission.
Whaimutu Dewes, one of the highest-paid commissioners, estimated that at that time he spent between 40 and 80 hours a week on commission business. The fees, paid at a daily rate, were intended to reflect opportunities lost because he was not doing other work, he said.
Not that Mr Dewes appeared to be jibbing too much, certainly not enough to turn his back on the recompense offered by the commission. Indeed, if the commissioners had been perturbed about their hours, their other work and about the commission getting value for money, they might have asked valid questions about the way the commission operated.
Was it, for example, necessary for the commission to be paying consultancy-rate fees for its work? Would it not be better, and certainly cheaper, to employ staff at realistic salaries to do those tasks? Such staff would, as in standard corporate practice, advise and be answerable to a board of directors.
Those commissioners who reaped a rich crop of fees would doubtless point to the expertise they brought to a difficult task. Such expertise could, however, have been fostered and accumulated far more cheaply. And it is hardly irrelevant that those highly paid commissioners failed in their major mission: feuding between tribal and urban Maori continues to thwart the allocation of the commission's $800 million in fisheries assets - the result of the 1992 settlement of Maori treaty claims.
That failure prompted the Government last year to drop from the commission the likes of former chairman Sir Tipene O'Regan and Mr Dewes, and appoint seven new members.
The new chairman, Shane Jones, does not expect any commissioner will in future receive fees anywhere near those paid in the past financial year. He also says the earnings of each of the commissioners will be identified in the future. That may all be a little more comforting if similar pledges had not been made before.
Three years ago, after earlier refusing to release earnings details on spurious privacy grounds, the commission said it would make them available. But the identity of the commissioner who earned almost $330,000 is not revealed in the 2001 annual report.
About the same time, the commission also talked about paying less in consultancy fees as staff numbers increased. It maintained that commissioners' skills had been essential in the commission's early stages, but that was now behind it. This year, the the Government has instructed the commission to resolve the impasse over asset allocation within 12 months. That dictate suggests a heavy workload and much consultative work if the commission does not alter course.
The commission is clearly embarrassed by its past excesses. So it should be. The concessions to transparency and accountability being mooted by Mr Jones are welcome. They do not, however, suggest a total solution. That could be achieved only by revamping the working of the commission and dispensing with commissioners. It would be the first step toward achieving far better value for money.
<i>Editorial:</i> Get rid of fisheries commissioners
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