N.Z. 'compelled to come to terms’

Press, 16 June 1988, Page 6

N.Z. 'compelled to come to terms’

New Zealand was compelled to come to terms with the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision on Maori fishing rights, said the Opposition spokesman on fishing, Mr Doug Kidd (Nat., Marlborough). Reacting by tearing up the treaty document was not an option, and so the only thing to do was to acknowledge it and go forward from there. New Zealand must recognise that Maori rights existed and be generous in their recognition, he said. There could be no carve-up; the seas were seamless and so could not be carved up into Maori and non-Maori fisheries.

“We can now only move foreward to something

else,” Mr Kidd said, “and while there is fear and will be more fear we must still go forward.”

The Minister of Maori Affairs, Mr Wetere, said the decision on the Muriwhenua claim was a historic opportunity which New Zealand must grasp. Fishing resources were not there for just one people, he said. They were there for all New Zealnders but the system that reflected that had to include the established rights of Maoris to fish too.

The Minister of Fisheries, Mr Moyle, said the key finding by the Waitangi Tribunal was that the Crown had failed to comply with its fishing obligations under the

Treaty of Waitangi.

The Crown would have to react to the tribunal’s strong finding that there had been a wrong, but also react in such a way that the sins of the fathers were not visited on the children.

Its report would create fear and raise expectations, he said, and so had to be dealt with in a calm and rational atmosphere.

It was now incontestable that for 150 years the Crown had not fully honoured its fisheries obligations to the Maori people. But in 150 years many things had changed and the Crown would not, in righting wrongs done to Maoris, ignore it obligations to and the rights of others in the fishing in-

dustry. “The task for the Government and the country

is now to take on board the tribunal’s findings and inter-weave them as best we may into the current fishing industry management in a fair and workable compromise,” Mr Moyle said.

He did not want to shuffle off his share of the blame, and said he regretted the Government’s decision in 1985 to remove part-time fishing licences, particularly in Northland.

The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bolger, said the fishing situation was the result of political decisions taken down the years. “The solution must be political and must be acceptable to everyone,” he said.