Paul Little doesn’t understand MMP

Paul Little writes:

Labour may have gender representation right in its list, but it has another, more serious problem. Five per cent (ie, one person) of its top 20 list places is occupied by Maori, who make up 15 per cent of the population.

This is something Labour needs to address if it wants to be seen to truly reflect our country and its diversity.

Little is showing a stark ignorance of MMP. The Labour caucus will be determined by how many seats they win and then topped up with List MPs.

Labour have eight Maori MPs in seats they are likely to win.

They also have two (not one) Maori MPs ranked in the top 20 and three in the top 21.

But with MMP what is important is the effective List – removing those likely to win seats. So actually three of the top eight effective List positions are Maori.

This combined means Labour is likely to have 11 Maori MPs out of a caucus of 35 (assumed 29% party vote).

So rather than be under-represented by Maori, Labour in fact is likely to have a caucus that is 31% Maori – twice their share of the population.

Yet Paul Little in his ignorance clams this is not enough.