This is public/state controlled funding. Also it is reserving it for "research with economic benefits." New Zealand isn't a rich country. Also private entities can fund research. It is common in the US for chemical companies to fund grants. For example, to determine what chemicals are in breast milk.
One of New Zealand's problems is that, yes it's a rich country compared to many others but it's conveniently close to a bigger richer country with easy immigration for NZ citizens. Record numbers of kiwis are moving to Australia where wages are higher and prices are usually lower. The "brain drain" is very real and quite concerning.
I'm a kiwi living in the US so admittedly I'm not helping matters but I do worry about my home country being on a slippery slope.
> Also private entities can fund research. It is common in the US for chemical companies to fund grants.
It's also common in the US for companies to fund research so that they can manipulate results to their benefit and/or to bury results showing that their products are harmful. One of the many nice things about publicly funded research is that its purpose isn't to increase sales/stock prices, advertise, or manipulate/hide the truth from the public.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/13/pfas-for...
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.0c06978
https://www.acs.org/about/aboutacs/financial/overview.html