For 2008 and 2011 I did some analysis of the likely party caucuses after each election, based on list and electorate seat selections, in regard to women's political representation. I'm hoping to do it again for 2014 but will depend a lot on time, as these can be very time-consuming for the bigger parties. Here's my first for this time, cos it came up today and was easy to do.The Internet Party is brand new this election, in fact this year, and released their 15 person list today. It will be zipped in some fashion with the Mana list, and I'm not sure quite what that will look like yet (Mana have only announced their top 4 so far) so I'll have to do another post on this when that is all out.
Historical representation of women:
New party so not relevant.
Current representation of women:
No current MPs, or caucus. Leader (Laila Harre) is a woman.
2014 Internet Party selections:
Women represented across the whole list: 6 out of 15 (40%).
The top ten are alternated female and male, 11 is a man, 12 a woman, and then 3 men for the lowest 3 spots.
Top 5 - Three (Harre at 1, Pierard at 3, Ballantine at5) 3/5 = 60%
Top 10 - Five (As for Top 5 plus Farvid at 7, Sami at 9) 5/10 = 50%
Top 15 - Six (As for Top 10 plus McClintock at 12) 6/15 = 40%
Women selected for electoral seats: 6 out of 15 (40%)
All of the list candidates are running in electorates. Realistically the list is far more important, as the Internet Party will be getting MPs from Hone Harawira winning Te Tai Tokerau rather than breaking the 5% threshold (although we shall see!). They have clearly strategically picked seats where they think there will be wider spread media coverage than the immediate electorate - and it looks to me like the ones where the Alliance used to do well, but that could just be my own past filter* ;-). Which makes me wonder if the seat Harre will run in may be Epsom? Another theory is Upper Harbour, which is closer to Harre's roots in West Auckland and her past efforts in Waitakere, plus no worries in that seat of having to talk about coat-tailing more than usual.
Likely future representation of women:
Depends very much on percentage of the vote for Internet/Mana combination, whether Harawira holds his seat, and how the combined list works after the sixth spot. At this stage it seems that they might get down as far as the combined 5th spot, which would mean two Internet MPs, Harre and Yong, so 50/50 gender-wise.
Other comments on candidate diversity:
Youth is a big feature, deliberately and highlighted. The youngest candidate is 23 (Ballantine at 5) and only two are over 40 (Harre at 1 and Keinzley at 11). Salmon is a "digital Maori" at number 8, while there are a number of candidates who appear to have Asian heritage, and one (Farvid) who is Iranian. No mention of disabilities or sexuality, that I can see.
Links:
Internet Party List on their website
Index of A Women's Place posts for 2008 & 2011 - analysis of all the likely caucus outcomes for as many parties as I could a) get and b) give time to look at.
Index of A Women's Place posts for 2014
* I was in the Alliance Party from 2000 to 2007, and ran for them in 2002 and 2005.
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