The Treasury shot down a bid to save kiwis, saying a project to protect the country's national symbol was "not aligned with overall Government priorities".
The Government went ahead anyway, boosting funding for the "Save Our Iconic Kiwi" project in this year's budget.
Although Treasury supported several other conservation projects, it said the project "to reverse decline and secure an increase in kiwi numbers and distribution" was a dud.
The comments about the Department of Conservation (DoC) initiative were made in a paper dumped in today's Budget 2015 information release.
Last month, a report from the Local Government and Environment Committee said there were fewer than 70,000 kiwi left in the wild, with the population declining by 2 per cent a year due to predation.