Maoris Treated as separate nation’

Press, 28 September 1988, Page 6

Maoris Treated as separate nation’

The Maori people have been treated not so much as a vital people in the family of New Zealand, but as a nation within a nation, Mr Bolger told the Christchurch Rotary Club yesterday. “The decision of the Government, made without consultation with the New Zealand people or even the fishing industry, to gift 50 per cent of the fishing resource to the Maori people will haunt this Government. “The ultimate effect will be to unsettle a major export industry. In the meantime the Govern-

ment has exacerbated a growing race relations problem and effectively decided that the Maori people are a separate nation with whom you trade at the highest level.” Mr Bolger said National recognised the special place of the Maoris in New Zealand and of their language and culture. “The real problems in Maoridom wil not be solved with hasty patch-up legislation that transfers the problem to our children.” Successive Govern-

ments had relied on handouts to the Maoris, rather than opportunities, as the answer to Maori problems. “Each year the problem of Maori under-achieve-ment grows worse. “We could politically settle every claim before the Waitangi Tribunal and still not materially increase the chance of a young Maori child competing successfully on the international stage.” Mr Bolger said that a National Government would aim at Maori education.