Heatley Phil: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
Heatley Phil: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15642] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 We come now to the wide-ranging title debate and I would like to go through the six major issues that are of concern to the National Party and that we have raised through the course of the Committee stage. As we said in the second reading debate we support the principle of the bill—that Maori after 12 years are able to get on and go fishing. But we have identified flaws in the bill as we said we would during the second reading debate some of which are quite significant. We would have liked to see those flaws addressed during the Committee stage. We certainly saw some of the flaws addressed during the select committee stage and I was delighted by that and by the opportunity to have input into the bill. But there should have been more changes during the Committee stage. 
One of the issues of course is the recognising of up and running iwi organisations. When the Labour Government first tabled the Maori Fisheries Bill it said in its stupidity that some iwi like NgaiTahu and Tainui who have already been recognised in other Crown settlements and who already have structures in place to deal with settlements have to jump through all those recognition hoops again. That is what the Government wanted. It wanted NgaiTahu and Tainui to go through all those recognition hoops again with all that bureaucracy all that form filling and box ticking and on it goes. But we made changes in the select committee to clause 14 to make sure that such iwi organisations will get automatic recognition if they have already been formally structured and are accountable to their members if they have already established an asset-holding company and if they have already been accepted by the Crown as having a mandate for Treaty of Waitangi settlements. Clearly NgaiTahu fit into that category and Tainui undoubtedly does as well. Why should they have to go through the hoops again? We are glad to have made those changes. I can only consider in hindsight the foolishness of the Labour Party in even thinking those organisations would have to go through that all over again. 
One of the other issues we looked at was that of the coastline agreements that were likely to hold up allocation. Why in the original bill the Minister David Benson-Pope had it so that if one small section of coastline had a dispute it meant that the allocation relating to the entire coastline would be held up I have no idea. It was more sensible to us to make sure that Maori could get on and access their quota from the areas of coastline that were not under dispute while issues around the other small area of coastline under dispute could be resolved. We made those changes because we knew whether objection was warranted or vexatious that some iwi would come forward and stop allocations dead in their tracks with a coastline argument. That would have been unfair and unreasonable. We would like to have seen NgaiTahu appeased in some way because it has already resolved its coastline through both Crown settlements and endorsement through the courts. They know what their coastline is. It has been proven through a Crown settlement and through a court and it should stand. 
We also discussed the issue of the limitations of realising the value of fishery operations because capital items such as trucks and boats and buildings quota and shares could be sold only within iwi groups—iwi to iwi or iwi to Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd. There is no doubt that that will mean there is an effect on the value. The restriction on the sale of shares and quota definitely has a potential to affect their value. However that is an accepted consequence within Maoridom. They understand that Maori through the generations must benefit from the settlement. It is a fundamental principle of the allocation model and they are prepared to take the hit. Of course we question the commercial sensibilities of that decision. We questioned Maori time and time again at the select committee but they said to us that they understand that but they want to keep their quota for their children and their children’s children. We support that as well.