June 04, 2015
Long road to fisheries changes
The chair of Te Ohu Kaimoana is warning it could take a couple of years to set in place changes to Maori fisheries settlement structures ordered up by iwi.
A special meeting of iwi organisations in Wellington yesterday voted to retain the Maori fisheries trust in a reduced format.
Matiu Rei says the iwi made the right decision to reject the main recommendation in the review conducted by Wellington barrister Tim Castle that Te Ohu Kaimoana be wound up.
However, they did decide they should have greater control of pan-Maori fishing company Aotearoa Fisheries, taking over the voting and income shares now held by the trust.
He says a new funding model will be prepared for iwi to consider at next year’s annual meeting.
"Obviously there’s stuff that we're still doing at the moment which needs to continue. We can't just stop and change everything overnight. We know it's going to take some time. We're estimating it's going to take possibly up to 2 years it could even be more. All of those resolutions apart ffrom the non binding ones require some type of law change" he says.
Matiu Rei says under the changed structure iwi will continue to benefit from the policy and advocacy role undertaken by Te Ohu Kaimoana.
Meanwhile, National Urban Maori Authority chair Willie Jackson says the authority intends to fight the iwi’s decision to take control of the $20 million fund set aside for urban Maori in the 2004 Maori Fisheries Act.
He says iwi continue to deny the aspirations of urban Maori.
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