Party tricks
Members vote, results may vary
Labour released its list for the November election this morning, and the surprises started early. Vanushi Walters, who was ranked 30th three years ago and only returned to Parliament after David Parker resigned his seat, is now at number eight, leapfrogging a string of more senior MPs. Rakesh Naidoo, a serving police superintendent (now the subject of some controversy) walks straight in at 13, above sitting MPs with years of parliamentary service. Willow-Jean Prime, stripped of her education portfolio after a run of gaffes, holds on at seven.
Greg O’Connor, the Ōhāriu MP whose electorate was abolished by the boundary changes, is not on the list at all. This was an effective announcement of his retirement. He seems to be a bit liberated by it.
I say that because O’Connor, to his credit, said what many Labour MPs have probably thought over the years but rarely stated for the record. The Labour list process, he told The Post, “makes the choosing of a Pope look transparent.”
It’s a good line, but it’s a bit harsh on the Holy See. The only thing that isn’t transparent about a papal conclave is the secret ballot itself. The rules of the conclave are published, the electorate is known — every cardinal under 80 — the eligibility is clear and the outcome is unambiguously the product of the votes cast.
White smoke means someone got the numbers. Two-thirds backing of the cardinal electors. That’s it. Done and dusted.
Labour’s list process is… more complicated
First, candidates for the list either need to be selected for an electorate or be nominated in writing by six financial members of the Party. Electorate candidates can withdraw from the list process with the consent of party bosses.
The candidates are sorted into regions and the next part of the process begins with Regional List Conferences. Financial members and affiliated union delegates then get to vote, using a preferential system, to produce rankings for their region. Running alongside the regional track is a separate Te Kaunihera Māori List Conference, conducting its own parallel ranking on the Māori electoral roll.
From these conferences a series of indicative lists are created, which are then sent to the Moderating Committee. This is quite a large committee, which includes the party leader and his or her deputy, three other caucus members and a whole host of party officials and identity group representatives.
This is where the indicative results meet reality. The committee has some guidelines to work from and is bound by the constitution to work toward gender balance on the final list. Beyond this, the committee is meant to “have regard to” various other identity considerations.
These are the sorts of prescribed ways that the Moderating Committee can depart from the recommendations in the regional indicative lists. It is also free to depart from them for any other reason and is not required to give any reason at all. In that sense the regional lists can be said to be indicative of local preferences rather than the final shape of the party list.
Whether the Moderating Committee’s other deliberations reflect regional conference preferences, union priorities, the leadership’s strategic assessments or some mixture of all three is not something the party publishes. What it must do is produce a gender-balanced list. What it need not do is tell anyone why a first-time candidate with no parliamentary experience ranks above sitting MPs.
How does National look in comparison?
