March 23, 2023
Pataka plan to hold Maori spectrum
Members of an interim Maori Spectrum Trust working group are looking at how allocations of communications spectrum to Maori can be turned into income for Maori development in the sector .
Peter Fraser, who represents the New Zealand Maori Council on the group, says after decades in which Maori have had to go to the Waitangi Tribunal or the courts whenever a new generation of spectrum was released, they now have an agreement with the crown that 20 percent of any future allocation or reallocation will go to Maori.
He says they’re now working of what the new entity will look like.
“Because we’re getting radio spectrum off the government we’ve got to put it somewhere. We’ve got to put it into a pataka. So the pataka we’re setting up is a trust and you can almost imagine it a little like a fisheries commission for spectrum, because we’ve got to put it somewhere. So that’ where it goes. That gets some funding from the Government to run for its first five years but after that it has to be totally self-sufficient and self-funded,” Mr Fraser says.