Fishing claims provoke threat of disruption

Press, 21 July 1988, Page 1

Fishing claims provoke threat of disruption

By

NIGEL MALTHUS

Canterbury fishermen are threatening rebellion unless they get guarantees from the Government, over its handling of Maori fishing rights. A meeting of 200 fishing industry representatives in Christchurch yesterday resolved to stop co-operation with the State’s fisheries management unless certain guarantees were given within two months. The non-co-operation would involve not filing catch returns and withholding resource rentals, which amount to $2O million a year nationally. The guarantees sought are that the Fishing Act be amended so that all fishermen are treated equally under law in commercial fisheries, and that the Government consult fishermen and gain their agreement before striking any deals with Maoris over fishing rights. The meeting whose mood was combative — speakers saying they felt “threatened” or “robbed” by recent developments — passed the resolution without dissent.

Identical resolutions have been passed with overwhelming support at similar meetings in Invercargill and Dunedin. Although some at the meeting expressed fears of being “picked off” by the Ministry of Fisheries if they acted on the threat, the president of the Federation of Commercial Fishermen, Mr Bob Martin, said that he did not think it would come to that.

“All you are asking for is guaranteed right of consultation,” said Mr Martin, who chaired yesterday’s meeting. The meeting was told that the recent Muriwhenua ruling by the Waitangi Tribunal upheld Maori fishery rights out to a 12-mile limit, but the Ngai Tahu claim now before the tribunal was claiming as far as the 200-mile limit of the New Zealand economic zone.

That would represent the world’s fifth-largest ocean fishery, said, Mr Ron Threadwell, fleet manager of United Fisheries. Fishermen had “no beef with the Maori race” but there was “a minority group undermining the democracy that we live in,” he said.

A second resolution was passed that settlements must be based on existing fisheries management practice — that quotas be taken from fishermen only at fair market prices, and not by compulsion. The executive officer of the Fishing Industry Board, Mr Ray Dobson, who outlined the legal position, said the Fishing Act excluded “Maori fishing rights” from its scope. Recent court decisions had interpreted those rights as commercial rather than just “cultural” fisheries. The Waitangi Tribunal ruling on the Muriwhenua claim also went far beyond the previous interpretation of the law and it was thought that the courts would follow the tribunal’s interpretation.

Mr Dobson said that the Maori people, the fishing industry, and the Crown all now realise that the best way out of the impasse was to negotiate a settlement. The industry had been told, however, that the matter was between the Crown and the Maori people, he said. The exclusion of the industry was not satisfactory. The Fishing Industry Board’s position was that Maori fishing rights as mentioned in the Treaty of Waitangi were basically noncommercial.

The board’s lawyers also believed it would have grounds for action if the Government altered the quota system or raised resource rentals to accommodate Maori claims, said Mr Dobson. The member of Parliament for Sydenham, Mr Jim Anderton, who attended the meeting as an observer, said that the fishermen had a fundamental “right to strike” but warned them to check that any suggested protest action was legal.

He said that he identified with many of their concerns, but warned against racist statements. “If we are all-New Zealanders, we shouldn’t talk about them (Maoris) in derogatory terms.” There was no question but that Maori rights had been abrogated over the years, and sometimes removed by the courts,- he said.

Mr Anderton said he would take the fishermen’s “legitimate” concerns to the Government caucus meeting today.