By JOHN ARMSTRONG political editor
"How lucky can you get?" joked one cabinet minister dismissively when told Bob Simcock had made it onto National's nine-strong front bench in Jenny Shipley's reshuffle.
The promotion of the low-profile Hamilton West MP will hardly have the Labour-Alliance Coalition quaking in its boots.
But the pressure is now on him to prove otherwise after his leader confidently predicted her social welfare spokesman will outrun Social Services Minister Steve Maharey "by a hundred yards" when the pair go head-to-head in Parliament.
Mr Simcock is a member of National's Class of 96 - the half-dozen MPs who came into Parliament at that year's election and whom Mrs Shipley is drawing upon to front her "year of attack" during 2001 and to bolster her leadership in the process.
Apart from one classmate, however, none has made the kind of hard-hitting contributions during National's first 12 months in opposition which scream "promote me."
The exception is Gerry Brownlee, the other new face in National's front-bench elite and someone whose ambition now sees him making a cheeky, nothing-to-lose bid for the party's deputy-leadership.
In Opposition, the junior whip has not been afraid to put his head up in Parliament at the risk of its being shot off by opponents and has a "magnificent bombastic style" - to use Mrs Shipley's phrase.
The Christchurch MP also made the most of his opportunity to shine last year as a shadow spokesman in the industrial relations and accident compensation portfolios - areas where Labour was on the back foot.
The 44-year-old former high school teacher has now been rewarded with the highly prized education portfolio. He is up against Labour's hard man, Trevor Mallard - a minister who so far has not put a foot wrong, but one who Mrs Shipley thinks is vulnerable for being "too union-controlled."
In contrast, the 54-year-old Mr Simcock has to shrug off perceptions that he has been rewarded for being a Shipley loyalist.
The former clinical psychologist has also taken a while to learn not to rise to the bait every time Winston Peters teases him for having been pals with Bert Potter in the early days of the Centrepoint.
A good debater and networker with voluntary social agencies, Mr Simcock is a strong advocate for children, promoting Family Start in Hamilton, and legislation to establish child mortality reviews and controls over adolescent drinking in public places.
He scored a minor coup last year, mildly irritating Mr Maharey by organising a well-attended "Stop the Hurt" conference on child abuse at Parliament, which made National look like it was doing something while the Government dithered.
But he has revealed little of his thinking about broader welfare policy.
Rather than just pinging Mr Maharey, his priority is to recast National's social welfare policy and erase lingering voter perceptions that the party does not care about the poor - an image generated in the early 1990s by Mrs Shipley and Mr Simcock's sister-in-law, none other than Ruth Richardson.
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