Farrar disingenuous over lack of women on National list

In an attempt to innoculate about concerns over the lack of women on National's list, released yesterday, David Farrar points to the three biggest movers on the list:

So who are the big moves.
The three biggest promotions are:
1.  Paula Bennett +27
2.  Amy Adams+24
3.  Nikki Kaye +24 A big vote of confidence in all three

Now it's interesting that Farrar chose the top three movers upwards.  Because the next two are:

4.  Simon Bridges +21
5.  Jonathan Young +21

These are the five who have moved up more than 20 places, which are really very large promotions.  But to point all of them out would involve showing two men's names when the focus is on minimising the appearance that the National list is male-dominated.  Good strategy to try and distract from the 72% maleness of the top 50.


And then there's this assessment from Farrar, which has been repeated elsewhere by a number of centre-right and right bloggers:

In terms of caucus diversity, and assuming a 48% party vote, National would have 15 female MPs out of 60, or 25%. A lot better than the old days when you could count the number on one hand, but not as high as it could be. The percentage women would increase to 28% if National gets 52%.

When Farrar refers to "the old days" I'm assuming he doesn't mean the current day, because right now the National caucus has 28% female MPs (16 out of 58).  I know I'm just a girl and girls can't do maths, but 25% is LESS THAN 28% and 15 projected female MPs is LESS THAN 16 current female MPs.

Key said yesterday that National still has the most female MPs in the House.  As previously mentioned, they have 16.  Labour have 15 female MPs.  Coincidentally, National have 16 more MPs than Labour overall.  Makes you wonder how many women National would have in the House if they had fewer MPs total, doesn't it?

Hooton has reportedly been on the radio this morning saying we live in a post-feminist world and 50% women's representation isn't a big deal anymore.  As Megan succintly tweeted:

if 50% of women would be no big deal, why don't we have it? And why are we going backwards?

Shame on National for continuing to entrench a lack of political representation for women in New Zealand.



Graphic shamelessly stolen lovingly reproduced from this guest post at The Standard.   See also a post by Labour's women's affairs spokesperson Carol Beaumont at Red Alert, looking beyond just the lack of women on the list to also list some of the funding cuts that programmes on women's issues have faced under National.