O’Regan calms fisheries fears

Press, 1 April 1989, Page 2

O’Regan calms fisheries fears

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

The fishing industry has been assured that Maoridom will not keep coming back for more in its fisheries claims.

One of the Maori negotiators with the Crown, Mr Tipene O’Regan, told the Fishing Industry Association annual conference in Wellington yesterday that in the end that assurance would depend on the nature of the settlement.

“If something is rammed down Maori throats then of course they’ll be back again,” he said. “Such a settlement rammed through would be making a rod for New Zealand’s back in the ■ future.

“But people should remember that Oliver Twist’s asking for more comes from nineteenth century Britain and not twenty-first century New Zealand.

“An agreed solution on their fisheries claims will be binding upon Maori, as long as it is not set in concrete in such a way that the relationship between the Maori and the Crown over fishing cannot be modified or negotiated as time goes by and circumstances change,” he said. If the solution was genuinely agreed to by both sides then it would stick.

For him personally, if he could not deliver to Maoridom then he would go back to teaching and "the next generation of Maori will take it out of pakeha hides.”

Maoris relied on the Treaty of Waitangi to rectify past wrongs, and they attacked the Crown for failures in past Government performance. This was not the first generation of Maoris do that;

successive generations had been attacking the Crown. “It is a fact that the fishing industry is caught up in this historic process, but it is not the fishing industry that is being attacked because it is not the industry’s fault,” Mr O’Regan said.

Maoris wanted their tribes to be active participants in fishing, and had done for the last 150 years. Maoridom wanted its quota owned by its tribes, as partners to the Treaty, and become their inalienable assets to be used by individual members.

Achieving this through the courts would be an avoidable mistake but might be forced on Maoris if the Crown did not do justice to its Treaty partner, Mr O’Regan said. Winning in the courts would be hard for both Maori victors and Crown losers to handle. Like the America’s Cup, fishing matters should be settled on the water and not in the courts.