Party Demographics

I’ve analysed the demographics of the caucuses of the four larger parties. Some interesting observations.

Gender

NZ First and the Greens are the most gender imbalanced. The Greebns are only 25% male and NZ First only 22% female. Next is National at 30% female and the most balance is Labour at 46% female.

National’s 30% female is the highest ever level for them (off memory)

Ethnicity

National has 13% of its caucus with Maori ancestry, 7% Asian and 2% Pasifika. They are under-represented with Pasifika and Asian.

Labour is strongly over-represented with Maori and Pasifika MPs, and under-represented with European and Asian MPs.

The Greens are fairly well balanced except they have no Pasifika MP.

NZ First’s caucus is two thirds Maori.

Note that I do not advocate that a caucus should have the exact same proportions of MPs by ethnicity as the NZ adult population. But neither do I think it is a good thing if a caucus consists of MPs from one gender and ethnicity only. A diverse caucus that is more representative of NZ is a stronger caucus – but it doesn’t have to match exact proportions with some sort of quota.

Age

National now has the oldest caucus while the Greens have the youngest. In fact no Green MP is aged over 50.

Area

National is under-represented in Wellington and provincial New Zealand and over-represented in rural NZ.

Labour and Greens are massively over-represented in Wellington. The Greens have no MPs at all outside the three main cities.

NZ First has highest provincial representation.

Island

National and Labour fairly spot on for North and South Island. Greens and NZ First over-represented in North Island.

Decade entered

Only NZ First had an MP enter in the 1970s.

One Labour MP entered in the 1980s.

No Green MPs entered before 2010.