‘Vindictive’ Govt changes rules for legal fund for environment cases

The Government has quietly changed the rules around an environmental legal assistance fund to render it basically useless, critics say.

The Environmental Legal Assistance (ELA) fund is a contestable pool of cash that organisations can apply to use to legally challenge developments on environmental grounds under the Resource Management Act.

It helps those groups fund the cost of lawyers and expert witnesses in Environment Court cases and board of inquiry hearings for ‘‘matters of national significance’’.

The money has been used to legally challenge the Basin Reserve flyover in Wellington, the Three Kings Housing development in Auckland, and the Ruataniwha Dam in Hawke’s Bay.

A new criteria, added last Friday with no press release, requires the panel who consider applications to to take into account whether granting the money will ‘‘contribute to impeding or delaying the ability of people and communities to provide for their social, economic and cultural wellbeing in relation to important needs, including employment, housing and infrastructure’’.

Critics say this change will render the fund useless.

‘‘Developers could claim almost any development is in the public interest. A coal mine creates jobs,’’ Save the Basin spokesman Tim Jones said. His group used the fund to successfully stop the New Zealand Transport Agency’s proposed Basin Reserve flyover in Wellington.

‘‘This sounds very much like it was designed to stop groups like us getting funding,’’ Jones said. ’’It’s not just about getting to hire lawyers – it’s a fundamental part of the legal process, that communities should have the right to challenge proposals.’’

The ELA annual budget was slashed to $600,000 in 2013, down $445,000 on the year before, although the Government noted that the full amount had rarely been allocated.

In 2016 Environment Minister Nick Smith took over final control of funding decisions from the chief executive of the Ministry for the Environment, a move critics described as a ‘‘power grab’’.

Green MP Eugenie Sage said the Government was trying to shut down any opposition to controversial developments.

’’This is a deliberate political intervention to prevent NGOS [non-governmental organisations] from being involved in controversial cases.’’

She described it as a ‘‘vindictive’’ move after a residents’ group delayed the Three Kings Housing development in Auckland.

Smith said it was not a direct response to issues with the Three Kings development, but that community groups challenging new housing and infrastructure projects was a factor.

’’I make no apologies about being frustrated that the Three Kings project – which involved 3500 homes – was effectively delayed for five years as a result of multiple challenges to the High Court and Environmental Court.’’

Smith is both the Environment Minister and the Minister for Building and Construction.

‘‘The Government doesn’t want to spend taxpayer money to impede new housing on one hand, while the other hand is trying to get more houses and transport infrastructure built.’’