Life as a Minister

Audrey Young reports on part of a speech from Steven Joyce:

One of Mr Key’s closest advisers, Transport Minister and first-term MP Stephen Joyce, also spoke to Federated Farmers, telling them how hard it had been getting used to the public service when he took office a year ago.

He would hold meetings with officials sitting around the large table in his office, with reserve officials standing around the walls. When one official left the table, another would slide into his place and even finish his sentences. The officials, he said, held further meetings after their meetings with ministers in order to establish what they thought the minister had been trying to say. Sometimes Mr Joyce had come across those meetings outside his office and added his own contribution as to what he thought he had been trying to say.

Heh.  I can just see Steven doing that.