By David Robie
AUCKLAND — A Maori tribe which has already laid claim to 80% of New Zealand's South Island has rocked the nation by winning a landmark ruling of the Waitangi Tribunal that the tribe be granted the lion's share of the national fisheries.
Although the tribunal report is not legally binding, the government is under considerable moral pressure to honour the finding under the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
The recommendation that the Ngai Tahu tribe be granted exclusive fishing rights around most of the South Island has been hailed by Maori leaders and many Pakeha (Europeans), but some politicians have called for the tribunal's powers to be curbed or reviewed.
Fisheries industry leaders and national television commentators condemned the finding. One prominent fisheries spokesperson branded the tribunal a "kangaroo court" and called for its abolition.
A Pakeha backlash is now growing in protest over the scale of transfer of state resources to Maori iwi (tribes).
Prime Minister Jim Bolger made it clear in parliament that the government did not plan to fully implement the tribunal's fisheries finding.
"No settlement can ignore the development of New Zealand over the past 150 years", he said. "We are in 1992 not 1840".
Bolger added that the tribunal's recommendations could make it more difficult to reach a fair settlement of the fishing claim.
However, two senior ministers defended the tribunal against criticism.
Maori affairs minister Doug Kidd — a Pakeha who has replaced rebel Maori politician Winston Peters in the portfolio — said opponents of the tribunal wanted to shoot the messenger because they didn't like the message. Justice Minister Doug Graham said he believed the tribunal was doing a good job.
Ironically, two former Maori affairs ministers were among the critics.
Both Matiu Rata, leader of the Mana Motuhake party, and Peter Tapsell, the opposition Labour Party's MP for Eastern Maori, have criticised plans to give Ngai Tahu a large proportion of fishing quotas. They suggested that the quotas be decided on a population basis — and Ngai Tahu is a smaller tribe.
Under the Treaty of Waitangi, which established British governorship over New Zealand, the indigenous Maori chiefs and tribes were guaranteed "full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their lands, and estates, forests, fisheries and other properties".
The tribunal was established in 1975 but without powers to consider issues arising before that year. Critics regarded it as "window dressing".
In 1985 the tribunal was expanded and given wider powers, including hearing claims referring back to 1840. The new body reflected a shift from a judicial-type hearing towards a more informal commission of inquiry.
The tribunal found in the Ngai Tahu case that the tribe had an exclusive right to fish virtually the whole South Island coastline and a "reasonable share" of deepwater fisheries out to the 200-mile zone.
Seventy per cent, by value, of New Zealand's total fishing catch is taken in this area.
The tribunal said the state had committed a serious breach of the treaty by assuming the right to distribute Maori fisheries under quota systems set up in the mid 1980s "as if the fisheries were crown property".
Further breaches were a failure to protect and conserve sea fisheries and the assumption that non-Maori people had equal fishing rights with the Maori.
The 430-page report on the fishing claim follows a 1250-page report on the Ngai Tahu land claim last year — which has still to be settled by the e .
The Ngai Tahu are laying claim to 80% of the South Island when in 1840 only 2500 Ngai Tahu existed in the whole of the South Island.
Peter Talley, former president of the NZ Fishing Industry Association, branded the tribunal a "kangaroo court" and said the ruling was unfair to hard working non-Maori New Zealanders.
"Giving preference on the basis of race will cause problems with every other New Zealander", he said.
However, Tipene O'Regan, chairperson of the Ngai Tahu Trust Board, said negotiations would involve compromise and his tribe did not expect to gain everything recommended in the tribunal report.
"I think a blind man could see it's not possible to restore to Ngai Tahu 100% of what it has been dispossessed of."