National finds out

Since coming to power last year, National has viciously cut the public service, sacking nearly 10,000 public servants (to date). Those people weren't just doing nothing, and it was obviously going to have an impact on something other than the government's books. But while National's over-paid, privately-insured, and DPS-guarded Ministers may have been able to ignore growing hospital wait times and the police withdrawing from enforcing laws against domestic violence, there's finally been an impact they may have to pay attention to: it may affect their ability to deliver their agenda:

Funding cuts have been so deep at the Ministry for the Environment that it may not have enough resource to enact the Government’s resource management reforms, including the Fast Track resource consenting plans.

The current work plan is only able to be delivered because some of those losing their jobs accepted delayed redundancy, MPs have heard.

[...]

Palmer said the ministry had hit all its deadlines on the work programme set by the Government, but indicated that it may now need more funding next year as the Government embeds its reforms, including the Fast Track resource consenting regime.

“It may well be further resources are required,” he said.

This was a problem for Labour last term as well, when their ongoing austerity meant the Ministry of justice could not deliver on their promise to rewrite the OIA, and instead had to ask the Minister to prioritise (the Minister ultimately chose to prioritise reducing accountability for politicians via a four-year term instead). But this is rather more serious. RMA reform and the fast track law are National's key priorities for the portfolio, and the Ministry is basically saying that they can no longer provide the necessary advice and analysis to do it. They've been gutted so badly by National's arbitrary cuts that they're basically useless.

Given the scale of the cuts, this is unlikely to be an isolated story. Other Ministries will likely be in the same situation, even if they have not yet publicly said so. So National may have cut itself into ineffectiveness, and its agenda may now be going nowhere fast.