August 30, 2016
Iwi eye fisheries settlement profit
Iwi have voted take some of the money set aside to run Te Ohu Kaimoana in future … but then set up a new conflict on how the money will be divided.
A special general meeting in Wellington this morning took just over an hour to work through a raft of recommendations from an iwi working group looking at future funding options for the Maori fisheries settlement trust.
Te Ohu Kaimoana had been funded through revenue from managing quota and its shares in Aotearoa Fisheries, now called Moana New Zealand.
After a structural review, those shares are going to iwi.
The trust had proposed the $74 million it has built up in savings and accumulated profits over the past 20 years form an endowment.
The iwi working group proposed it review how much it really needs and then distribute the rest.
But the hui then voted 28 iwi to 23 that the distribution be not on the basis of coastline or population but with each iwi getting an equal share – great for the likes of Ngai Tamanuhiri but not so for Ngapuhi or Ngai Tahu.
That’s likely to create pressure for there to be no division.
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