Brownlee Gerry: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
Brownlee Gerry: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15610] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I am not surprised by that declaration from Larry Baldock. Everyone knows that United Future does not think for itself—it takes its instructions directly from the ninth floor. Here we have a very simple proposal from my colleague Dr Mapp. So that we understand exactly what that proposal is let me outline it for a moment—and if the Minister in the chair David Benson-Pope thinks I am wrong he could take a call to point that out. 
Maori have been granted 20 percent of the quota allocation. That was done back in 1992. It is theirs. Nobody else owns it—Maori do. That ownership is recognised through the various mandated iwi organisations but for the past 14-odd years the asset has been held by the Maori Fisheries Commission. At this stage no Maori has had much value from it at all. We are now at a point where supposedly there is to be a distribution of that asset. What do we get? We get a bunch of vested interests coming together to work with the Government to put together a bill that will ensure that Maori do not get all of their assets for some time to come—perhaps for some decades or perhaps even in the context of the enduring settlement process for centuries. 
I tell Mr Baldock that all that National is saying with this amendment is that if an iwi has a demonstrated capacity to manage its own asset then surely it should be able to get its hands on it. It is very disappointing that Mr Baldock and the rest of the white planters in the United Future team have decided to bow down and do the bidding of Helen Clark. Mind you that is something this Parliament is getting quite used to seeing. 
I ask the Minister to explain what the objection is to Maori organisations that are capable of managing their own assets—and are well demonstrated as being so—taking control of their own assets. Why do we have to proliferate this problem in our society whereby Maori feel aggrieved? That is what will come out of this bill. It might not be next week and it certainly will not be on Thursday afternoon when all the vested interests and their hangers-on turn up here to sing clap and carry on— 
Darren Hughes 
: I bet you don’t say that on Thursday. 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: I will be saying that and I say to Mr Hughes that I will tell them not to come back when the National Party is in Government and expect some correction to this bill. This is a Labour Party Government mess—no one else’s. 
Why can the Minister not tell us that his party does not trust Maori? Labour’s view is that if Maori were to get hold of those assets they might sell them and that would be a terrible thing because then they would not have any. Does not that sort of transaction happen all the time in the business world? Is that not a reasonable thing for someone to be able to do? No the Labour Party Government is not prepared to let Maori have their own assets. Worse than that Labour wants the management of those assets to continue under the chairmanship and stewardship of some of its closest supporters. I am very worried by clause 104 because it seems to me that it allows the profits of this considerable asset to be used for purposes other than the betterment of Maori—provided that those who are running the outfit say it is for the betterment of Maori. I think we see the seeds of another Crown Forestry Rental Trust being planted.