KEY POINTS:
It pays to be quick off the mark in politics - especially when the time comes for the great office rush.
The change of Government means that over the weekend about 100 workers for two moving companies will shift boxes of belongings, computers and vast amounts of paper between the Beehive, Bowen House and Parliament House.
Technology staff will have hooked up computers, security card access will be changed, phone numbers transferred to new phones. Names on office doors will have been scraped off - some forever, and others to be painted on somewhere else.
It will all have been preceded by a stampede of MPs to the parties' whips - the people in charge of deciding who goes where.
For some MPs, tradition decides where their new office will be.
After nine years on the ninth floor of the Beehive, former Prime Minister Helen Clark will move into an office that has become the traditional base for former party leaders to while away their remaining days as a politician.
Previous inhabitants of the corner office in Parliament House include Mike Moore - the man Helen Clark took the leadership from in December 1993. It was also the parliamentary home of Jenny Shipley after Bill English rolled her in 2001.
On Parliament House's second floor, it is one of the grandest Opposition offices with all the trappings befitting a former Prime Minister - large, with good afternoon sun and featuring a fireplace, a small reception area and a high-stud ceiling.
It also keeps a former leader one flight of stairs and a corridor away from peering over their successor's shoulder.
The true centre of power for the Opposition is on the third floor, which holds the leader, advisers and senior spokespeople.
Usually reserved only for the main opposition party, this time the one-man caucus of the Progressive Party, Jim Anderton, will also be there in the spirit of the "coalition" in opposition he has declared with Labour.
Lesser mortals are at the mercy of the party whips, and rumour has it that Labour's best offices went very quickly indeed.
John Carter - who was National's chief whip for the last major changing of the guard in 1999 - says that in general the lobbying for offices is "fast and furious ... You're never as well loved as when you're a senior whip and people are looking for offices."
Things MPs take into account is the view, the size and the dread of receiving one of the dull offices with no external windows which look out over a mezzanine floor.
For the whips, Mr Carter says placements are a more complex science, which takes into account seniority and the need to be near others with related portfolios.
As for whether trying to curry favour actually does pays dividends? "Well, there's always a little bit of that."
Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee is co-ordinating where the new ministers will go. He used much the same formula, but added into the mix the larger office quarters needed by ministers with large portfolios.
He said the move was a huge logistical exercise but it was expected to be one of the cheapest since MMP began.
Previous elections had resulted in building work to configure floors to fit different parties. This time there were "a few extra partitions and doorways, but no huge expense".
MUSICAL CHAIRS
Who's moving where in Parliament:
* National: From Parliament House to Beehive (ministers only) with other MPs spread across three floors of Bowen House and six MPs on the ground floor of Parliament House.
* Labour: From the Beehive and Bowen House into top two floors of Parliament House.
* Progressives: Leader Jim Anderton moves from the Beehive to snuggle in with Labour.
* Greens: Move upstairs in Bowen House. With a larger caucus, they get two floors instead of the current one.
* Maori Party: From Parliament House to two floors in Bowen House. Ministers Pita Sharples and Tariana Turia will stay with the party.
* Act Party: Stay where they are but spread out to take over United Future's half of the floor. Ministers Rodney Hide and Heather Roy stay with them.
* United Future: Peter Dunne moves upstairs in Bowen House.
