‘Last chance’ on relations

Press, 7 October 1988, Page 4

‘Last chance’ on relations

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington This generation is the last one to have a chance to find some way through a negotiated Maori-non-Maori relationship, according to the chairman of the Ngai Tahu Trust Board, Mr Tipene O’Regan. He is one of four Maori negotiators involved in meetings with Crown representatives to try to resolve Maori fisheries claims. “Otherwise, if there is not a negotiated relation-

ship, we will see an Ulsterisation of the mind in New Zealand,” Mr O’Regan said. There was a section of young Maoridom that was keen to visit the sins of the fathers on the sons; the task of this generation was to confront the past and achieve redress. He did not think that the Maori negotiators had been set up deliberately by the Government to fail. It was enormously difficult to find a settlement that Maoridom could live with. But the hui last July and the one last week had

clearly accepted the advice of the four negotiators that the present bill, amended in the way advocated, should be accepted. Some Maori people would prefer the negotiators to go to the courts and stay there fighting for maybe five years, Mr O’Regan said. There were also some on both sides in Parliament who wanted the issues hammered out now and then closed off once and for all.

“The effect of that on race relations would be so scarifying that even the

worst red-necks would not enjoy it,” Mr O’Regan said.

The job of the negotiators was to find a solution that was digestible for the great bulk of Maoridom. “Both Matiu Rata (one of the other negotiators) and I have found a very very representative section of pakeha New Zealand that is very concerned about and committed to a treaty-based resolution,” Mr O’Regan said.

“We are astonished at the magnitude of this support.”