Steve Webster collection of evidence presented at Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission hearings.

Evidence presented at hearings to determine appropriate allocation of Maori fishing assets by Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission collated by anthropolgist Dr Steve Webster, who also presented evidence at the hearings.

The hearings held in the New Zealand High Court were to determine two questions: whether allocation of assets prior to the 1992 Deed of Settlement over Maori fisheries (the "Sealords deal") must be exclusively to iwi, and secondly, is "iwi" taken to mean traditional Maori tribes. Urban Maori authorities maintained that they should gain a share of the assets on the basis that they represent modern day tribes of Maori who may miss out under traditional arrangements because they are distant from ancestral regions or who have lost tribal links. Justice Paterson decided that, as used in the act, "iwi" meant traditional tribes. However, he said that tribal bodies had a responsibility to ensure that the benefits resulting from settlement assets would be delivered to all tribe members.

The collection includes submissions from a wide range of academics, tribal figures and historians over the nature of traditional Maori society and social organisation and the difficulty of determining "iwi" in the modern context.