RoO, you've started to stray into the other argument I have about the 45 and 50%, which is the right of women in the Party to organise. I'm a trade unionist by day (and night!), and we acknowledge the power imbalance between workers and employers, so we organise, collectively. It's no secret there is a structural power imbalance between men and women as collectives, which is played out in our access to fair pay, leadership positions, living violence-free etc, etc. Power imbalances often need mechanisms to correct them, which is what the Party's women have done, with many of the Party's men recognising the issue and supporting the women.

If we get onto the merit argument, I think most on this thread recognise that we all have a different view of what 'merit' is, in the same way we all have a different view of what 'common sense' is. Also, Parliament is a House of Representatives, not the 'House of the smartest' or the 'House of those with the most power'. It currently isn't representative of women, and by a large number.

My beef with Gower is that he suggested 'demotions' based on faulty logic. We can argue and crystal ball gaze over what the actual PV will be in 2014, but it will certainly be higher than the 2011 disaster and so there will be room for many more MPs, including more men. There will also be retirements, which will create room for more MPs. Political analysis based on hysteria, not logic, urks me.

There is international evidence that in a job interview, if you have the following candidates: a) assertive man b) passive man c) assertive woman d) passive woman, the following is the likely order of being hired:

Assertive man
Passive man
Passive woman
Assertive woman

Yep, that's why we will work off the "effective list", which takes those Electorate seats into account. We will have a reasonably good idea of which seats we will win and which we won't. Looking at the the Electorate seats we lost, 21 candidates from those 48 seats were women. That's 43.75%. I haven't got time to go through the one's I would pick as 'marginal' (maybe a job for later).

Also, 7 women won Electorate seats for Labour in 2011: Louisa Wall, Annette King, Ruth Dyson, Megan Woods, Lianne Dalziel, Clare Curran and Nanaia Mahuta. If Poto wins ChCh East (she will) and of course, with the addition of Meka, we have 8 Electorate seats held by women.

We're actually not far off the 45%, so with growth in PV, delivering on the 45% women without demoting men will not be a problem.

Thanks Graeme, yes, I popped the figures for a 34% and 38% PV up earlier. Ben Wilson makes the point that the 2005 National result came off their worst result in 2002, and I've made an assumption that our PV will lift significantly from 2011 to 2014 based on a swing and an improvement in voter turnout. I don't think that's an unreasonable assumption. We're currently polling at 33.5% which is 6 percentage points higher than where we landed in 2011. It's something I agree with Shane Jones on - we should be aiming high if we want to earn the right to the Treasury Benches. Regarding Paddy's use of the word 'demotion', it implies men losing their current placings on the list in a future list. When you assume an increase of PV on 2011 (even a 6 point increase based on where we are now), and the requirement for 45% women, the maths doesn't deliver any demotions.

Hi everyone, thanks for the feedback so far. Yes, I have assumed an increase in the PV for Labour and the resulting numbers in Caucus. I think it's a given we will get a higher PV. Currently, Roy Morgan has us at 33.5% which would still deliver an increase of 2 men in Caucus. If we get to 38% PV we get 5 more men. We're aiming for a high PV so that's what I'm working off.