Lange and Tapsell clash on Maori fishery claims

Press, 4 April 1989, Page 1

Lange and Tapsell clash on Maori fishery claims

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

The way the Government and Maoridom are handling Maori fishing claims has been attacked by a leading Maori in the Government, the Minister of Police, Mr Tapsell. But the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, said the actions being taken by the Government were collective ones and that as a member of the Cabinet Mr Tapsell had subscribed to them.

The Opposition spokesman on Maori affairs, Mr Winston Peters, said Mr Tapsell was adopting National Party policy on Maori fishing claims and should apologise for voting against it previously. Mr Tapsell said at a hui in Rototua that the Government could not sit back and seek a solution from the courts over the status of Maori fishery under the Treaty of Waitangi. “We are blundering around in the courts and getting nowhere,” he said. The Government’s policy so far had been hard to follow and “I’m bound to say that I’m

not quite sure what we are doing.” Mr Lange said the Cabinet’s latest moves on Maori fishing claims, to which Mr Tapsell had subscribed, would be presented to the special Parliamentary select jcommitee considering the controversial Maori Fisheries Bill in Auckland today. “This is as complicated an issue as any New Zealand Government has ever faced and we are working our way through it,” he said. “It would be crazy for a Government to surrender the determination of policy to the courts. In the end the Government has to and will itself make the decisions.

“But there are ways of arriving at decisions and the courts can help in this process,” Mr Lange said. Mr Tapsell’s remarks were not discussed at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting. Mr Lange said that if Mr Tapsell was saying that the matter was political and it was not up to the courts to make the final decisions, then he

agreed. Also, it had to be remembered that the Government had not taken a single Waitangi issue to the courts — Maoris had.

“The Government is trying to resolve a very, very difficult situation which has come and matured over a very long period when Governments failed to address it, and now we have the challenge to fix it,” he said. Mr Peters said Mr Tapsell had “gutted the Government” over Maori fishing.

“For a Cabinet Minister to break ranks on Government policy clearly announces the gravity of the situation,” he said.

The Attorney-General, Mr Palmer, had an obsession with the courts and he had run roughshod over political and legitimate Maori concerns to fuel that obsession.

Mr Lange said the Crown submissions today to the select committee should be seen as the next stage in a number of stages to resolving the Maori fishing claims issue.