Stopping of loan ‘seen as nobbling’

Press, 26 December 1986, Page 2

Stopping of loan ‘seen as nobbling’

PA Wellington Maori people had seen the stopping of investigations into a $6OO million overseas loan as “yet another authoritarian nobbling of a good idea,” said the Prime Minister, Mr Lange. "They will see it as an example of the Establishment frustrating Maori initiative,” he said. He was also concerned the loans affair could be destructive in advancing the economic interests of the Maori people.

The State Services Commission is preparing a report on an allegation that the Secretary for Maori Affairs, Dr Tamati Reedy, had been investigating the. prospects of borrowing $6OO million overseas. The affair dominated Parliamentary proceedings last week with Opposition members calling for the resignation of both the Minister of

Maori Affairs, Mr Wetere, and the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas.

It was clear Mr Wetere had stopped the loan investigations continuing, Mr Lange said in an interview, but he did not know if such a move would affect his mana among his own people. "My preliminary view is that they don’t like it that he stopped it” The negotiations were called off using “standard commercial principles of prudence,” yet the Maori people had not been concerned with that, he said. Mr Lange said Labour and other Governments had been committed to the notion that there should be big economic advances for the Maori people.

“The fear I have is that this is going to be destructive of an issue such as that.”

The Maori Affairs De-

partment had been faced with a classic dilemma — a clash between the people’s connection with the land and a desire to “foot it” in economic initiatives with the best of the pakeha world, he said.

Maori Affairs had been governed by legislation that was basically protective and paternalistic while, at the same time, the Maoris were being told they should advance their own economic activities.

“Manifestly the Maori Affairs Department is not equipped to be the receiver, creator and executor of entrepreneurial policy,” Mr Lange said.

He believed astute Maori economic managers were needed.

“You cannot transform someone who is concerned essentially with the social aspects of policy into an entrepreneur.”