Turei Metiria: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15597] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 Additionally on Supplementary Order Paper 260 the Greens are putting forward a second amendment to clause 50. Clause 50 sets out how the voting shares in Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd are to be distributed. Currently it provides that Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd is the sole recipient of the voting shares in Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd. The amendment put forward by the Greens is that the words “Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Limited” be omitted from subclause (1) and substituted with the words “mandated iwi organisations in equal shares”. Fundamentally we believe that if 50 percent of the assets of the iwi are to be held by a centralised company then it is absolutely critical that it is the iwi that controls the voting shares in respect of what happens to the company not instead some other organisation that is at least three steps away from the iwi. 
The argument in favour of Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd having those voting shares is that iwi will not be able to manage that responsibility effectively themselves; that somehow they are so entrenched in their own personal dynamics that they will not be able to exercise their voting responsibilities in a way that is best and ensures the best for the company as a whole. It is argued that they will use their influence and their voting influence to shore up their own interests therefore ensuring that at some point in the future the company will implode because the people concerned will not be able to agree or get on with the job in hand. Of course that is an incredibly paternalistic and I would go so far as to say racist approach to the ability of iwi Maori to manage their assets. 
Iwi Maori have held shares in companies and incorporations and have managed trusts in all sorts of organisations for years and years and they have been doing a very good job of managing those assets primarily around farming and forestry in incorporations and in trusts. They have been doing a really good job of building on those assets and making gains wherever they can for their economic advantage. I myself have been a beneficiary of moneys that have come from a farming incorporation held collectively by my iwi. They have helped me in my studies as they help many hundreds—maybe even thousands—of Maori throughout this country. 
There is no doubt that as iwi are getting settlement assets of their own accord they are able to manage those assets effectively for the benefit of the iwi as a whole and are able to exercise their responsibilities in a responsible and commercially effective way. There is absolutely no reason why they should be excluded from having the opportunity of exercising those responsibilities over assets that were originally designed to be held by them in their own hands. If the assets are to be centrally held then it is absolutely critical that iwi Maori have some kind of voting control over what happens to them especially considering the power that Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd currently has or will have under the bill over the mandated iwi organisations and being able to change their constitutional arrangements and requirements. 
At the very least it would take an element of commercial competition out of the hands of Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd and ensure that iwi Maori have actual control over all their assets as they were originally supposed to have. That is what the settlement deed was about. It was the whole point of returning the assets to the rightful owners. That will not happen under this bill. Fifty percent of those assets will be held by centralised organisations whose accountability back to iwi is very very poor—many steps away. The amendment proposed by the Greens is just one small way of ensuring that iwi Maori have control over the assets they are entitled to and that the settlement originally intended they have. I urge this Committee to support both the amendments that the Greens have put forward in their Supplementary Order Paper to clauses 38 and 50 to ensure that iwi Maori actually have the control over the assets as it was designed they should have.