Shortly before the announcement of the budget, Analiese Jackson sat down with former Minister of Education for the Labour Party, Steve Maharey, to talk about his relatively new role as Vice Chancellor of Massey University…

Analiese: You’ve been in the role of VC for a wee while now…how are you finding it? And how different really is it to the wild world of politics?

Steve: You’d be surprised at how similar they are. If you take out the time that you spend in the House of Parliament, the focus is on meetings; speeches; writing; reading and money, the kinds of things that you do as a Minister in many ways… it’s a highly diary driven day, dealing with the people that you work with, so the cross over has not been as big as you might expect for a modern university, particularly an outward looking one like Massey…so the transition has been reasonably smooth as a result of that. I’m really enjoying the job though. Education has always been, I suppose, where my heart’s at. I love politics and the process of politics but in terms of an area of interest education is most probably it. I’m feeling very much in my element and enjoying myself.