Fisheries resources given to Maori are self replenishing, require no maintenance, no capital input, minimal administration and earn $10s of millions per year through licensing fees. The largest expense, policing, is met by the remainder of the population through the Navy and MAF. In business terms an eternal, unassailable cash cow providing income of such magnitude is virtually priceless but certainly worth at least a $Billion. Governments, Maori and people like Peter Dey grossly understate the value of such ‘settlements' to deflect concern about the value of resources given to special interest groups.
In 2008 The Labour Government gifted the Kaingaroa Forest, then worth an estimated $500Million to the Te Arawa tribe. This ‘settlement' alone is more than 3 times the $160 million Dey claims as the total forestry gifted to Maori nationwide, yet is only one of many forestry assets lost to the general populace through ‘settlements'.
While Dey clings to the $1billion fairytale, Tauranga councillor Bill Faulkner wrote in the same paper of attending the latest BOP ‘Settlement' ceremony where it was revealed that the costs of settling just the current Western BOP claims is expected to total around $500 Million and that local Maori view this as just the start of an endless process of transferring universally owned BOP assets to their exclusive control.

Mike Kuipers von Lande,
Mount Maunganui.