Turei Metiria: Maori Fisheries Bill — First Reading 
Turei Metiria: Maori Fisheries Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:614;Page:10477] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The Greens want to see the fisheries assets that were taken in breach of the treaty returned to their rightful owners. To that extent we are pleased to see this long process come to some kind of resolution—as uneasy a resolution as it is. But the bill does not meet the criteria the Greens consider to be ethical either in equity of distribution or in giving sufficient authority to iwi and hapu. There remain a number of serious unresolved issues. 
The introduction of the Maori Fisheries Bill into Parliament brings an opportunity to critique and scrutinise the provisions in the bill and to present issues that reflect Green considerations over this—an early treaty settlement. Our concerns include the strongly corporate framework in the settlement structures asset distribution that is not sufficiently beneficial to iwi and hapu and the marginalisation of tikanga in deference to corporate models of management. I want to outline some of our concerns. 
We agree that the quantum for and restrictions on the use of Te Putea Whakatupu Trust do not offer urban Maori the level of support and benefit they are entitled to. The High Court has very recently acknowledged that the Government and the Minister of Fisheries are not fulfilling the obligations of the Crown to accord fair treatment to all persons who have rights and interests extinguished by the settlement. The court also noted that iwi benefits will not reach those whom the iwi does not know and that iwi mechanisms will not be able to deliver the benefits of the settlement sufficiently such that the putea will suffice to cover those gaps. 
 This leaves unresolved the serious questions of the fragmentation of iwi produced through the alienation of our land base. We do not agree that the centralisation of 50 percent of the total asset holdings in a new company Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd is the best way to protect the fisheries assets. Te Ohu Kai Moana believes that this is the right thing to do because Maori do not necessarily have the capacity to hold their assets long term. It argues that central management of this proportion of the assets is essential for the retention and protection of the assets for use by future generations. But iwi argue that the assets are their property which they are entitled to control as they see fit. Many do not want to see half of their assets held and controlled by someone else. That is what this settlement was supposed to stop. We agree that this structure undermines the rangatiratanga of iwi and hapu to manage their assets and interests in commercial fisheries. 
Some have argued that the centralisation of assets will help develop the industry as a collective rather than numbers of smaller competing companies. But in fact it is the imposition of a competitive model that establishes that risk of competition which is then used against the rangatiratanga of iwi and hapu as collective communities not as corporate entities. We are concerned that Te Ohu Kai Moana Ltd the new group will exclusively control Aotearoa Fisheries as Te Ohu Kai Moana will retain all the voting shares over that company. It will also retain all the income shares until it accepts a mandated iwi structure which will then take on its share. This means that iwi will at some other unspecified time in the future receive only income shares and have no direct authority over the company that manages half their assets. This centralisation looks very much like a means by which those who have controlled these assets for some time will be able to maintain their control. 
Te Ohu Kai Moana argue that if iwi had the voting shares they would exercise that vote in their own interests to the detriment of the whole. In my view that is a sick argument. It says that Maori are incompetent incapable and have no capacity to think of anything but their own self-interest and that is unacceptable. 
It appears that Te Ohu Kai Moana is not subject to the same rigorous levels of accountability and governance controls that iwi organisations will be subjected to. Iwi governance entities have to meet a set of stringent conditions imposed by this outside agency before they are entitled to receive the property that they lost due to breaches of the treaty. But these provisions force iwi into corporate models of management that best fit the current economic theory not the needs of iwi or hapu. This is the imposition of the corporate over the community along the same lines as that imposed by the Office of Treaty Settlements. 
We question the synergy between governance structures to be established for the fisheries allocation and the direct negotiations. Will iwi have to turn themselves into structural pretzels to meet all the various requirements of the bodies that hold their property and refuse to hand it over? Given the difficulty iwi have had with the Office of Treaty Settlements over the mandating of governance entities I entirely understand the very real fear of iwi that once again their rangatiratanga will come second to imposed processes. 
The Greens are very concerned that this allocation process entrenches existing power disparities between different iwi participating in this industry and that those disparities will mean that the smaller players—iwi hapu and whanau—will not benefit from their fisheries assets in the long term. The mandated governance structures are an example of a very real barrier for smaller or poorer iwi. They will struggle to meet the requirements of the bill; they have no control over their assets which are held by Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd; and then they will have to try to compete in a market already dominated by long-term established iwi players. Some of those long-time players have been significant and it has been strongly argued unjustifiably significant beneficiaries of the previous release rounds which are reportedly worth $230 million in total. 
If the process picks winners and losers and entrenches their positions there is no justice here. Even if we factor in the review of Te Ohu Kai Moana in 12 years’ time the high vote threshold for making any changes to the structure of that organisation means that those smaller players will not be able to make the changes necessary to ensure some equity for them. Even the review process protects the status quo where the status quo benefits the stronger groupings. 
The select committee that will eventually consider this bill will be under some intense pressure to both change this bill and to retain it in its current form. The Greens want to make sure that there is a rigorous testing of this bill against principles of fairness justice and equity as well as economic considerations. There are some major flaws underlying the structure of this allocation process that date back to the original inception of the settlement and we acknowledge that we will not be able to fix all of those problems. But having said that we do not believe for a minute that the bill could not be altered to be fairer and to better reflect Maori community aspirations rather than corporate ones because despite some views to the contrary those are not the same thing.