Labour’s List

The Labour list is out, and one can see it at Jordan’s blog.

First some comments on the MPs. Parekura is ranked higher than his Cabinet ranking for some unknown reason. Marian Hobbs is ranked well above her cabinet rating, presuambly reflecting that they are worried about Wellington Central, so have made sure she is guaranteed to come in on the list.

Hawkins got offered such a low ranking (25 according to One News) that he turned down his list place. Taito Field’s ranking at 13 can only be tokenism as I defy anyone to list what he has done to put him in the top 15.

Now looking at actual List MPs, we first have to look at how many seats Labour will hold. If one presumes they will keep all their existing seats and party vote (they won’t but pretend for now) then they have 44 electorate MPs and only seven list MPs.

The seven list MPs would be:

1) Michael Cullen
2) Margaret Wilson
3) Ashraf Choudary
4) Shane Jones
5) Maryan Street
6) Dave Heroera
7) Steven Ching

The good news is that if Labour hold all elecotrate seats and gets 4% to 5% less party vote we can take out Cullen and Wilson 🙂

In theory any (marginal) electorate MP who loses their seat will be safe on the list except for Tamihere and Mahuta who are list only. Moana Mackey is next most at risk is she does not win East Coast and Labour drops 2%.

The big loser is Lesley Soper who will become an MP in April to replace Hunt but is only 11th in line to be a List MP after 2005.