By KEVIN TAYLOR
Three MPs are the big winners from the National Party's caucus reshuffle.
List MP Katherine Rich's star has risen meteorically.
The 35-year-old had been elevated from 11th to 4th in rankings, keeping social services and gaining associate agriculture, but losing broadcasting.
Epsom MP Richard Worth has gone from 22nd to 12th and kept justice but lost veterans affairs.
And former investment banker John Key was given deputy finance, a big new responsibility for an MP elected only last year and until now ranked second-to-last.
The Dunedin-based Rich said she felt a mixture of delight and caution at her promotion.
"It is quite a step up and you are expected to perform at a much higher level."
She has two children aged 1 and 2, and while she would not pretend that was an easy juggle like most working women she would strike a balance.
She said that getting associate agriculture might raise eyebrows, but she had a career in agriculture before entering Parliament in 1999.
Before politics she ran sheep genetics business Silverstream, owned by her parents, and worked for the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, and Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
Her father, Jock Allison, a scientist, has been involved in the importation of various sheep breeds into New Zealand for years.
Mr Worth rejected claims he did not take politics seriously.
The easy-going 55-year-old was executive chairman of Simpson Grierson from 1986 to 1999, and said he took a "big hit" in pay and level of responsibility to enter Parliament in 1999.
He said he ran New Zealand's biggest law firm on a "very hard-nosed basis" and law partnerships were like caucuses in that both were professional service organisations.
Mr Key expects his workload to increase a great deal after being handed the deputy finance portfolio.
He remains unranked in Dr Brash's lineup, retaining associate transport and gaining communications and statistics.
Married with two children, the 42-year-old who grew up in a state house is undaunted by his new finance role as he has considerable domestic and international experience in financial services.
After launching an investment banking career in the mid-1980s he moved in 1995 to briefly head investment bank Merrill Lynch's Asian foreign exchange operation in Singapore, before going on to a London-based job heading the banker's global foreign exchange and European bonds and derivatives operations.
He returned to New Zealand in 2001.
Three juniors thrown in at deep end
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