Brownlee Gerry: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
Brownlee Gerry: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15432] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 I want to pick up on the concern that we have about the paternalistic nature of this bill. Some of the points that Mr Shirley of the ACT party made earlier are quite right. Essentially what is happening is that Maori have been told: “Here is an asset.” but other Maori have negotiated with the Government so that there is a series of hurdles between the asset owner the operation of that asset and the opportunity to ensure that that asset produces good results for the owners. 
I want to know who in their right mind would accept some of the provisions that are imposed in this bill. I refer to clause 14A “Functions and powers of asset-holding companies”. Let us be clear first. The assets apparently are going to be allocated to mandated iwi. There is an enormously complex formula in here for how an iwi becomes mandated. I do not know why we are doing that in the year 2004. If iwi were not established operational and effective prior to 1840 then how on earth do they get under way now? What is the point of having to put it in law when Maori themselves should know exactly who is iwi and who is not. 
As I said before clause 14A deals with the functions and powers of asset-holding companies. So the iwi groups will have to go out and form a company to hold the assets. That company has a duty to wholly own those assets in perpetuity. They have to have all the appropriate documentation for a company and they are going to be a company that holds fishing assets—but guess what? They are not allowed to fish. They are not allowed to go out and acquire other fishing assets. They will just be a group of people who sit around and decide what they will do with the flow of income that might come from those other companies that are actually working their assets. So we will get viable organisations like for example NgaiTahu Fisheries as an iwi having to set up another company to hold the assets that are going to come through this settlement never mind the fact that they are already successfully fishing about 5 percent of the country’s quota acquired commercially. They will have to keep that group completely separate from the other and pretend that they have nothing to do with fishing. 
Then when it comes down to determining who actually gets their hands on the asset they will have to negotiate with a group of other iwi to get one person to go on to an electoral college who will then be able to cast a vote for seven as I understand it who go on to this outfit called Te Ohu Kai Moana. Then Te Ohu Kai Moana will get together and decide who their directors will be on the company that will actually put the boats out to sea. Who in their right mind will sign up for that? The problem that we have as a party is that Maori up and down the country think we hate them. They kick us all the time and they say that we never give them a fair go. But what is in front of us is what Maori have served up. We have to ask: “Well why don’t we just vote for it and let’s see what sort of a mess it turns out.” 
National has a number of Supplementary Order Papers that we will put forward during the course of the Committee stage. I say to the Government that if all those Supplementary Order Papers are rejected then we will reject the bill. We have as much stake in making this work for the future as any other party in this Parliament. It is not appropriate that only the Minister and his officials—whom quite frankly one would think after looking at this must be completely loopy—have a say in how the bill will be altered. Here we have a Supplementary Order Paper in the name of the Minister that is pages long. It contains 20 pages of changes to the bill and it has never been before the select committee. So the committee has done its work and our members certainly did a lot of work. They scratched their heads and got this huge bill together. The officials quickly raced through it and found 20 pages of changes. It is a mess.