Moriori Assn rejects report

Press, 9 December 1989, Page 5

Moriori Assn rejects report

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington

An offer of “beads and blankets” is how the Moriori Association has described the report of the economic consultants on the future of the Chatham Islands. Mr Maui Solomon, of the Moriori Tchakat Henu Association of Rekohu (Chatham Islands), said this was revealed from sifting through the small print and superfluous verbiage. There were multi-sided arguments and very complex issues to be worked through before the applicability of the Treaty of Waitangi to Rekohu could be determined. “Suffice it to say,” Mr Solomon said, “the Moriori believe there is no such thing as ‘Maori fishing rights’ as guaranteed by the Treaty of Waitangi since the Maoris were only in occupation of Rekohu five years before the Treaty was signed in 1840 and were not fishing there until 1900.” The Morioris, on the other hand, had continued to exercise their fishing rights and had done so continuously for the last 600 years up the present day. He said the association had made repeated submissions to the special Select Committee on the Maori Fisheries Bill that there existed no legal and certainly no moral justification for applying the provisions of the anticipated Maori Fisheries Act to Rekohu and that only Morioris could validly claim to have traditional tribal fisheries. His association’s recommendation had been to establish a trust in which the quota allocated in the Maori Fisheries

Act would be vested, pending resolution of the important issues of rangitiratanga and tribal claim to ancestral fisheries. The Chatham Island Maoris and the New Zealand Government needed to be careful to avoid the presumption that a valid claim existed unless proven so at the appropriate forum, the Waitangi Tribunal, Mr Solomon said. The association would not be dictated to by the Ministry of Maori Affairs, they would not be told that if they did not become part of it then they would be left out on a limb. “This is totally against mainland protocol and is rejected by Moriori,” he said. Unless the main issues and differences between the Ministry and the association could be resolved adequately, the establishment of a fully representative iwi authority (for the Chathams) seemed a distant pipe dream. In the meantime, Mr Solomon said, the Moriori Association was seeking equal treatment and recognition from the Ministry of Maori Affairs, Department of Internal Affairs and the Iwi Transition Agency in setting itself up as a fully responsible and accountable legal body for the delivery of Government programmes and services. Given the fact that the Moriori Association represented the recognised indigenouss people, such a request was no different from that of any other mainland tangata whenua group. “The continued denial of Moriori rights is prejudicial and culturally insensitive to the needs of the tohakat henu,” he said.