Maori Fisheries Bill

As I commented very briefly at the closing stages of this debate last evening, National will cautiously support the Maori Fisheries Bill, only because of the significant changes made during the select committee process. I say at the outset that this is one of those cases when the select committee process has been very worthwhile, and I am pleased that the Minister of Fisheries has agreed to the Fisheries and Other Sea-related Legislation Committee’s changes. This is in sharp contrast to the situation regarding the next bill on the Order Paper, the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3), where the Minister has chosen to ignore completely the work done by the select committee.

The bill is before us today to further progress the deed of settlement signed in 1992 between the National Government of the day—represented by the Rt Hon Sir Douglas Graham and the Hon Doug Kidd—and Māori as a means of progressing grievances around Treaty of Waitangi issues. There was a unique opportunity 14 years ago, when a brief window of opportunity was available to an imaginative Government, which was supported, as I understand—although I was not in Parliament at the time—by Parliament almost in its entirety. At that time a very significant investment conglomerate, Brierley Investments, determined that it wanted to exit its shareholding of Sealord’s fisheries, a very large, Nelson-based fishing company. I understand that this agreement was cobbled together in about 3 weeks, with an acknowledgment by all signatories that it would then take some time to devolve a way of moving the assets out to the various Māori themselves, so that they could control the resource and better it for themselves.

I have to say that in recent discussions I had with my former colleague Doug Graham I learnt that he certainly did not envisage that it would be a 14-year process. But we are today supporting this bill because at least it moves that process forward quite significantly. The legislation is still not perfect, but it is important to get this step under way so that the resource ends up with its rightful owners, Māori, with the benefits being delivered to Māori themselves.

It is appropriate at this particular time to comment on the deed of settlement and the Government’s extraordinary attempts to extend that document. Only last week I listened with huge interest to the Hon John Tamihere, who gave an amazing rendition of his interpretation of the deed of settlement of 1992. It was the most incredible account I have ever heard of that document. In fact, it was nothing more than a desperate attempt to widen the deed of settlement beyond what was ever envisaged 14 years ago. For Mr Tamihere to come into this House and argue that the deed of settlement now extends well beyond New Zealand territorial waters, into international seas, is a huge stretch of anybody’s imagination, including the Hon John Tamihere’s. The Government should be very careful when attempting to rewrite the deed of settlement of 1992. To do so will do nothing to further race relations in this country, and will put us back many, many years in terms of the grievance settlement process under the Treaty of Waitangi.

I want to comment on a couple of the significant changes made by the select committee that mean that the legislation is now presented back to the House in far better shape than it was when it went to the select committee. There was the issue of recognition of individual iwi and their ability to get control of the assets as quickly as possible. In this regard, the select committee has recognised a process whereby those who are operating significantly in their own right as commercial entities do not have to jump through a series of hurdles to try to establish their credibility with the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission. In my area, Ngāi Tahu has to now be recognised as the largest commercial entity in the whole of the South Island, and it was therefore quite illogical for the previous Minister of Fisheries, Pete Hodgson, to have suggested in the original drafting of the legislation that it be required to jump through hurdles and hoops to prove its commercial expertise. The select committee has sensibly recognised that, and has acknowledged that any such iwi, provided that they satisfy three criteria, will receive recognition. Those three criteria are that they are formally structured and accountable to their members, that they have established an asset-holding company, and, finally, that they have already been accepted by the Crown as having a mandate for Treaty of Waitangi settlement processes. Ngāi Tahu clearly fits that bill.

The second significant select committee change was around coastline agreements and the ability or inability, because of disputes, to progress allocation of resources. In many cases these issues of who has jurisdiction over particular pieces of coastline, and who therefore has entitlement because of their association with that coastline, have been largely agreed, but they have not been totally agreed. The select committee resolved that where majority agreement has been reached, distribution should be allowed to occur on that basis, but that the area still in dispute should be held back and not distributed. I think that is a very sensible position taken by the select committee, and I congratulate the members of the select committee on reaching that decision.

Of course, this legislation is about compromise. The issue of distribution of assets has been an ongoing argument and disagreement amongst Māori as they decide who is entitled to what. This legislation has sensibly suggested that, in the main—but not entirely, I might hasten to add—inshore fishery distributions will be on the basis of affiliation to coastline, whereas, in the main but not entirely, offshore fisheries will be distributed on the basis of population of iwi. The select committee has facilitated distribution, and I applaud that. The last thing I want to see, as a member of Parliament, is this legislation simply being a replacement of what we have had in the past, with assets still being tied up and with various iwi still unable to have their opportunity to do something with them.

My final comments are about Helen Clark and her apparent decision to reshuffle Cabinet in the not too distant future. This legislation, messy as it was, was presented by the Hon Pete Hodgson. Helen Clark sensibly sacked him as the Minister of Fisheries, but I am afraid she has now replaced him with David Benson-Pope, and his track record so far is just as disastrous. So I implore the Prime Minister that when she does the reshuffle—I know that talent is thin on the other side of the House—she takes note of the importance of the fishing industry to the New Zealand economy. Will she please attempt to find somebody within the thin ranks of talent on the Labour Government benches with some ability to understand the importance of legislation, and to get it into the House in a far less messy state than the Maori Fisheries Bill was when it entered Parliament?

In closing, I take this opportunity to thank the select committee for delivering back legislation that is a substantial improvement on what it was when it went to the select committee.