Maoris to use fish quotas to qualify

Press, 23 September 1988, Page 2

Maoris to use fish quotas to qualify

The wish to “New Zealandise” the fishing industry is-the reason the Government is insisting that fish quotas allocated to Maoris must be used by them to continue to qualify under the proposal. This emerged when the Minister for State-Owned Enterprises, Mr Prebble, was asked about quotas leased out to foreign interests — as was already done by many non-Maori commercial fishing interests. Mr Prebble said the Maori quota-holders could do what they liked with their quotas, including sell or lease to foreign interests. But such sale or lease would mean the quotas no longer qualified as Maori quotas and so would be deducted from the 2.5 per cent of quotas a year the Government was giving Maoris.

It was a case of whether the Maori tribe which had been given the quota was "substantially fishing it,” he said. If it

was not doing the fishing, but someone else was, the Government would say to the tribe that until it was substantially fishing it the tribe would not be given any more.

This has outraged one of the four Maori representatives in the negotiations, Mr Tipene O’Regan. “I don’t accept that we cannot be involved with other people in the industry and, if we cannot — while at the same time non-Maori quota-holders can be involved with whom they like — that would be a form of fishing apartheid,” Mr O’Regan said.

Mr Prebble said the prohibition would not apply where Maori quotaholders had entered into a development agreement with, say, Korean interests that led to the Maoris eventually doing the fishing themselves. At that point the Crown would say it was delighted to hear that the Maoris could handle their quotas and would be prepared to allocate more if that was

wanted. The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, said the Government’s reaction would depend on how joint any joint venture was. The Government’s proposal was designed to get Maoris into fishing boats and out fishing, not to contract Koreans into fishing boats and out fishing, he said.

Mr Prebble said there was no prohibition on Maoris as to what they did with their quotas. The quotas were known as “individual transferable quotas” and Maori quotaholders would have the same rights of “transfer” as anyone else. Maori representatives had said they did not intend selling their initial quotas. If they did, he said, they would be selling away the. 2.5 per cent a year progression. They certainly could sell it and, just like the rest of the fishing industry, would be able to use it to raise capital to get fishing.