90 the Ministry of Justice is concerned to serve the Minister or Ministers of Justice.   The Ministry is a core Government Department; it has no independence.  It must assess its priorities in accordance with the Minister’s wishes and it can carry out only those activities which it has been funded in the Budget to do.    339.  Officials of the Ministry of Justice are constantly involved in advising officials and Cabinet Committees, particularly the Legislation Committee, on legislation, its priorities and the changing agendas that Governments necessarily have.    340.  From   time   to   time   the   Law   Commission   contains   people   who   are knowledgeable  in  these  areas  of  Government  activity  and  understand  the Governmental processes closely.  But often there is no such Commissioner and no  staff  member  either  who  has  the  requisite  knowledge  of  the  processes  of Executive   Government   and   the   legislative   process   that   lies   beyond   the Executive in Parliament.  A personal network of connections within the policy making  portions  of  Government  is  necessary  in  order  to  fish  productively  in these waters. 341.  It  is  easy,  in  such  a  situation,  to  misunderstand  what  officials  are  saying  and think  that  the  officials  have  an  agenda of  their  own,  when  in  fact  the  agenda they usually reflect is that of their Ministers.    342.  It is true that officials see more of Ministers than the Law Commission does and their advice may be more influential in shaping the Government’s priorities than the Law Commission would wish it to be.  But those are the realities of the way the  New  Zealand  system  of  Government  works  and  they  need  to  be  taken  on board if the Law Commission is going to become more effective.    343.  The essential insight to be derived from the Law Commission’s experience is that law reform is a political activity.  It is carried out by politicians, and the experts who advise on it can only advise; they do not decide.