9. Environmental Legal Assistance Fund—Annual Funding and CriteriaEUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for the EnvironmentEnvironmental Legal Assistance Fund—Annual Funding and Criteria9. EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: By how much has annual funding for the Environmental Legal Assistance Fund been cut since 2013/14?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): The budget this year is $600000 per year as it was last year and the year before. For the 4 years prior to that the budget was $800000 per year but was repeatedly underspent. The spend in 2013-14 was $555000 and the average actual spend was $520000. As much as I like the Minister of Finance I do not like under-spending my vote so I reduced the budget in 2015-16 and transferred it to increased support for collaborative processes. This is also consistent with our blue-green philosophy of supporting people to find solutions rather than spending it on legal aid to fight disputes.Eugenie Sage: Can he confirm that he created a new criterion for the fund recently so that community groups wanting to challenge council decisions in the courts are likely to be denied funding if their case might impede or delay" a development project?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Yes I have changed the criteria. A new consideration is the issue of housing and infrastructure. The Government makes no apologies for making it harder for groups to get Government money to stop houses and infrastructure from being built. It does not prevent funding being provided in those sorts of cases but it requires the panel to give consideration to the broader public interest. It simply does not make sense for the Government to be using public money to stop transport projects being built and stop houses being built with legal aid funding.Eugenie Sage: Does he believe that Forest & Bird would have received funding to mount a legal challenge to Bathurst Resources' proposed coalmine on the Denniston plateau if this new criterion had been in place?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: There is an independent panel that makes the decisions on the issue of the legal aid. What I have added to the criteria is that alongside the environmental things issues like infrastructure jobs and housing have to be a consideration. But it still will be an independent consideration for the panel.Eugenie Sage: Can he confirm that last year he gave himself the power to decide which cases and which community groups would get environmental legal aid stripping this power away from the Ministry for the Environment's chief executive?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Each year Ministers make a decision about the level of delegations. In this particular case I decided not to delegate to the Ministry for the Environment albeit I note that I followed the panel's advice in every case. In the event that I do not follow the panel's advice it will be a matter of open public record.Eugenie Sage: Why will he not just own the fact that his Government is trying to stop legal challenges that might impede environmentally destructive development like the coalmine on the Denniston plateau the Ruataniwha Dam and the Basin Reserve flyover?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I know of many Wellingtonians who would be concerned that the Government was spending money on stopping roading through to the airport being constructed with legal aid funds. So the Government has deliberately put into the environmental legal aid criteria that the panel needs to consider issues like infrastructure and housing. To quote the Minister for Infrastructure: "We are the infrastructure Government." and we want to see New Zealanders being able to get around and have a roof over their heads."