Franks Stephen: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15616] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 It has been a privilege to come down to the Chamber without having done in a sense all the homework and without having been through the select committee hearings and hear what the previous National Party speakers have talked about. They have said that Maori came before the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee and said that they realised the consequences—I think those were the words used—of this measure that they realised that it would effect a discount of the value of their assets but they wanted it because they want these assets to be available to benefit future generations. I say that it has been a privilege to come down here and hear that because I myself would find it quite difficult to withstand that kind of argument. As a commercial lawyer I often saw families where the founder the entrepreneur the person who had built the family fortune was desperately keen to make sure that the asset endured. Those people tried to create structures that would ensure it would not get taken by the next generation who were often less worthy and frittered away. They tried to make it into the equivalent of a seat for the family—something that would make sure the family did not sink back into obscurity and normalcy. So I can understand the submissions and the sentiment. 
But I do not believe that that excuses this Parliament for not addressing the fact that this measure is also deeply in conflict with the Treaty of Waitangi; neither does it excuse this Parliament from at least recording that we have not permitted earlier generations the excuse of sincerity and good intentions. We have rounded on earlier generations who made similar compromises—sometimes highly paternalistic compromises but we recognise that they were compromises—and have treated them as though they had some kind of evil intent. A very simple example—and I think there is a parallel in this bill—is our rounding on those generations who insisted on Maori speaking English at school. The leaders both Maori and Pakeha of those generations could see no way for Maori to advance if they were not part of the world but we now treat that as evidence of some kind of bad intent. 
I believe that future generations will look at what we are passing in this part and draw the same conclusion. And they may be motivated by greed because they will come back and say that Maori did not benefit from the locking up of the asset. A few Maori will have benefited from the lockingup of it—those who pull the levers in iwi organisations—but what happens to groups such as NgaiTahu who believe that the overall entity is heading in very much the wrong direction that the majority who will be the only buyers are wrongheaded and that they cannot extract the genuine value? In effect it is a squeeze-out and they are squeezed out at less than true value. Ultimately when the assets have been devalued and it is quite patently clear that those who end up in control are incompetent they will pass to someone else at a gross undervalue. That pattern is repeated time and time again in family companies and in listed companies. It is the pattern of commerce where assets pass out of the hands of those who are less competent into the hands of those who are smarter. 
The problem with this bill is that it will ensure that it happens at not the proper market value which at least is a protection for those exiting but at a value that is discounted because the control is locked up. This Parliament should know what it is doing. It will be the next generations that will come back and say: “Those fools should have realised they were breaching the Treaty of Waitangi. They were putting in a transfer restriction that article 2 clearly did not contemplate. How could they have done it?”. I believe that it is the sort of thing ACT is here for—that is to point out that the emperor has no clothes. The member for Whangarei tells me that this restriction extends even to trucks and boats that even those physical assets cannot be sold on a genuine open market—that one has to find some other Maori who wants to go fishing. I ask what will happen when the inside money says that fishing has become technologically overtaken by fish farming. This kind of hunting which quota is all about might be replaced by fish farming before we know where we are yet Maoridom are expecting that this benefit will go down through the generations.