Assurances on bill changes denied
No assurances have been given by the Government that it would give favourable consideration to changes to the Maori Fisheries Bill now before Parliament. Allegations to this effect were rife in Parliament yesterday but the Minister of Fisheries, Mr Moyle, denied them. “I was surprised to hear that I had given assurances that the Government will give favourable consideration to the changes in the bill being asked for by Maoris,” he said. “I have not and cannot give any such assurances; the matter is now before a special Parliamentary Select Committee and I do not propose to influence that process in any way. “If- those making representations to the Select Committee make a convincing case then I am sure it win be influenced,” Mr Moyle said.
Mr Ken Shirley (Lab., Tasman) will be chairman of the special Select Committee. The other members will be Dr Bruce Gregory (Lab., Northern Maori), Mr Doug Kidd (Nat., Marlborough), Mr Winston Peters (Nat., Tauranga) and Dr Bill Sutton (Lab., Hawke’s Bay). Mr Shirley has called for public submissions to be in before a closing date of October 28. “With considerable public interest in this legislation, the Select Committee will meet as frequently as necessary to ensure that all points of view are given appropriate consideration,” he said. His committee might travel to centres other than Wellington to facilitate the hearing of submissions. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bolger, criticised the bill for transferring resources to Maoris
at the expense of nonMaoris. Any jobs created for Maoris would be a replacement for the jobs lost in other areas of the fishing industry, he said. National opposed the Government’s proposal, on the grounds that it would allocate a big economic resource on the basis of race,,he said. No-one denied that the Crown had a moral responsibility to the Maori people under the Treaty of Waitangi. There had been court cases and hearings before the Waitangi Tribunal to try to establish the extent of the Crown’s obligation. “In the minds of some Maori leaders and their legal advisers, the Maoris are entitled to 100 per cent of the fish resource,” Mr Bolger said. “That clearly is nonsense and I am certain was not intended at the time the treaty was signed.”
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Press, 24 September 1988, Page 3
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380Assurances on bill changes denied Press, 24 September 1988, Page 3
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