Turei Metiria: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
Turei Metiria: Maori Fisheries Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15593] 
METIRIA TUREI (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party has put forward Supplementary Order Paper 260 which proposes two amendments to Part 2. The first is to omit clause 38(1)(b) and relates very closely to the Greens’ amendment to clause 15 that was lost by only a few votes. Clause 38(1)(b) enables Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd to make or amend rules “that affect the criteria or other requirements applying to the constitutional documents of mandated iwi organisations ...”. 
Earlier the Greens expressed enormous concern at that power being provided to Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd which enables it to make any changes to the constitutional requirements or arrangements of mandated iwi organisations. There is no time limit on the use of that power so Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd can make changes to the requirement that a mandated iwi organisation has to meet at any time until the organisation applies for status or recognition. Those changes can be made at the time a mandated iwi organisation applies for recognition and at any time after it has already received recognition as well as its assets. That means it is possible that a mandated iwi organisation will time after time continually have to amend its constitutional requirements and arrangements to ensure it is able to access the assets that form a fundamental part of the settlement in the bill. 
The settlement deed that led to the creation of this bill after a considerable number of years was designed to enable iwi to have control over their fisheries and fisheries assets but the power that Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd is given in this bill means that in the end it will have a considerable amount of control over the way mandated iwi organisations operate. Mandated iwi organisations are responsible for managing the asset-holding companies that in the end hold their fisheries assets. Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd is also the sole voting shareholder of Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd which is the company that in effect will hold 50 percent of the settlement assets that were designed originally to be distributed to iwi. That will put the asset-holding companies of the mandated iwi organisations and Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd in direct competition in a very vulnerable and volatile industry. This bill also gives the sole voting shareholder of Aotearoa Fisheries Ltd the power to alter the constitutional arrangements of its competitors. 
That is not good law. There are no restrictions on that power. As I have said before I do not necessarily expect Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd to abuse that power but none the less the opportunity for that is there in the bill. If there were some means of providing some form of restriction on the use of that power a greater restriction on its use then perhaps it might be justifiable in the context of ensuring that mandated iwi organisations have a certain set of requirements and can then get their fisheries assets. But there is no justification for allowing Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd to continue to have that power after the mandated iwi organisations have already been established. All that does is put the mandated iwi organisations in an incredibly vulnerable position of never knowing when the goalposts are going to be changed and of always having to keep in reserve the possibility that they may have to rearrange their constitutional arrangements. There is some provision for mandated iwi organisations and iwi to know about those changes before they are made but in the end it is still Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd that will make the final decision. 
The Greens do not consider there is any justification for Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd to have such an unlimited unfettered unilateral power so we urge members to support our amendment to clause 38. That will ensure that Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd can still make and change rules about procedures around settlement quota can still make rules about access to iwi registers and can still be capable of establishing the rules prior to the recognition through the bill of mandated iwi organisations but it will also ensure that Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd has no ongoing unlimited and unfettered power to continually change the rules.