Last night I summarised the numbers of candidates nominated by party in the upcoming NSW election after nominations closed yesterday.
Following up on that post, I’ve analysed the number of men and women running for each party, and what impact the election may have on gender balance in the next Parliament.
There are four parties running candidates in all 93 seats. In addition, the Liberal Party and the Nationals are running a candidate in every seat (and are not running against each other anywhere) – so there is a Labor, Greens, CDP, No Land Tax, and Coalition candidate in all 93 seats. These parties make up over 86% of the total number of candidates nominated.
The Greens have done best in terms of number of women nominated, with 41 women out of 93 candidates, or 44.1%. Labor is running 34 women out of 93, or 36.6%.
There are a small number of Christian Democratic Party or No Land Tax (NLT) candidates for whom I haven’t been able to identify their gender. There are many CDP candidates without a photograph or biography available online, and the same is true for basically every NLT candidate. But overall these parties are close to Labor in terms of gender representation. The CDP is running at least 33 women and at least 58 men, with two unclear. NLT is running 34 women, 56 men, and three unclear.
The Coalition has the lowest proportion of women amongst their candidates. The Liberal Party is running 19 women and 55 men, or 25.7%. The Nationals are running four women and 19 men, or 21%. Overall, 24.7% of Coalition candidates in the lower house are women.
Smaller parties are running six women and ten men, while 15 women and 44 men are running as independents.
It’s possible to use this data to make some estimates about the gender balance in the new Parliament, which I’ll do below the fold.
The short story is that there will definitely be an increase in the number of women in the lower house, possibly setting a new record, and it looks very likely that there will be a decline in the number of women in the upper house.