KEY POINTS:
Prime Minister-in-waiting John Key will unveil his new Cabinet today after a fast-track Government formation.
It has taken Mr Key only eight days to form his government, compared with the 32 days Helen Clark needed after the 2005 election to negotiate support and co-operation deals with three parties.
In the new line-up, Simon Power is expected to get the Justice and Commerce portfolio, Anne Tolley Education and Tony Ryall Health.
Chris Finlayson is tipped as Attorney General, Murray McCully as Foreign Affairs Minister, Tim Groser Trade, and National's longest serving MP, Lockwood Smith, is expected to become Speaker.
Mr Key has already said he wants Tourism and his deputy, Bill English, will be Finance Minister with responsibility for Infrastructure as well.
Mr Key signed deals yesterday with the three support parties - Act, the Maori Party and United Future - that will give the National government 70 votes to 52 on confidence and money supply issues.
All other legislation will be negotiated case by case.
National will lead a minority government, in coalition with no other party, but it has commitments that will enable it to survive confidence votes.
In a ground-breaking move, Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples has been given the portfolio of Maori Affairs, despite National not needing Maori Party support to govern.
His fellow co-leader, Tariana Turia, will be Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector.
The confidence and supply agreement between National and the Maori Party is light on policy and heavy on the importance of the relationship between the two parties.
Mrs Turia said her party entered negotiations with one principle in mind - "that if we were able to achieve a respectful relationship, a mana-enhancing relationship, then anything was possible".
National has agreed that a question on the abolition of the Maori seats will not form of the referendum it plans to hold in the next three years on MMP, and neither party will take any action on entrenchment of the Maori seats in the current parliamentary term.
The issue of Maori representation will go to a group to be appointed to look at constitutional matters
The parties have also agreed to complete a review of the Foreshore and Seabed Act by the end of 2009.
Act's agreement is more weighted towards policy. It agrees to set up taskforces chaired by people from the private sector to identify wasteful spending in targeted areas of Government.
Those areas were not named yesterday.
Act has also won a select committee review of the emissions trading scheme, which will include looking again at a carbon tax as an alternative.
Act leader Rodney Hide will be Minister of Local Government, and his deputy, Heather Roy, will be Minister of Consumer Affairs.
United Future leader Peter Dunne's biggest gain was for the establishment of a Big Game Hunting Council, as part of a national wild game management strategy - something he had worked on with the former Labour government.
Ministers will be sworn in on Wednesday, apart from Murray McCully and Tim Groser, who will leave tomorrow night for Apec in Peru, unsworn.
Ministers inside and outside the cabinet will total 28, the same as the outgoing Labour administration.
The arrangements for support parties are similar but not identical to those that operated for New Zealand First and United Future in the last Labour Government.
They sought to put the respective ministers outside the Government, not just outside the cabinet.
The agreements signed yesterday acknowledged that the respective ministers are "part of the government' in relation to their responsibilities.
