July 28, 2023 11:59am by David Farrar

Labour’s delicate list ranking

Labour has to rank their list their weekend. It will be very challenging for them.

Last elections they won 65 seats. On current polling they look like they will get 41 seats, so that is 24 fewer MPs. There are a few retirements, but that is still a lot of MPs who look to lose their job.

A key factor is how many electorates they win. Last election they won 46 electorates. If they only lose five electorates, then they get no List MPs. They lose Robertson, Parker, Little, Verrall, Tinetti etc.

So they have the irony that senior Ministers will be hoping that they lose more than five electorates. I think there is a good chance they lose 10 – 12. So that means they may have only five to seven list spots to protect current MPs, get a more diverse caucus (they don’t want to have no Asian MPs) and bring in new talent.

If their party vote drops further than its current polling, then what happens may depend on who they lose votes to. If they lose votes to National, then they may also lose further electorate seats. But if they lose votes to Greens and Māori Party, then those voters might still vote for the Labour candidate and they won’t lose any further electorate seats.

I don’t normally give free advice to Labour, but here is what I would do if I was ranking their list. I am leaving off MPs in safe electorate seats as really doesn’t matter where they are: