March 30, 2016
Foreign fishers benefit from Maori settlement
The Maori fisheries sector is holding its annual conference in Auckland this week, but New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is questioning how Maori it is.
The conference started last night with the launch of a history of the Maori fisheries settlement, Te Ika a Maori, by Brian Bargh from Huia Publishing.
Mr Peters says when the settlement was signed, head negotiator Matiu Rata said Maori could now go fishing.
To a large extent that’s not what happened.
"I have been gravely disquiet about how the process has gone from there and how much is caught by foreign crews and downstream processed by foreigners. That is not in the Maori interest and definitely not in the national interest and whilst they were warned of it, it nevertheless has happened," says Winston Peters.
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