In the Beehive, your rank is your floor number. The Prime Minister’s office is on level nine. Other Ministers work on floors four to seven, and the higher the floor, the more senior the Minister.

New Zealand’s Ministers don’t have offices in their own departments. They are housed together in this Executive Wing of Parliament, finished in 1977. It was a modern answer to an old problem: the grand Parliament House next door was only ever half built, and its second wing never arrived.

Above the main entrance, a carved pare acknowledges the local and regional tribes and the land Parliament stands on.

VoiceMap’s two Wellington tours that pass the Beehive take you up close to that carving. The Capital Stories tour also continues to Brett Graham’s granite sculptures on the lawn behind, which use a bird’s head, a waka and an altar to reflect on leadership.