With 12 MPs openly identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community, the new parliament is to be the most inclusive ever.
Following prime minister Jacinda Arden‘s landslide win on October 18, almost 10% of the new parliament will comprise LGBTQ+ community members, surpassed the U.K.’s 7%.
“Numbers do matter,” the lesbian Labour MP Louisa Wall said before the election.”We have a critical mass with high visibility and we’re seen as valid. If we do end up being the most LGBTQI representative parliament in the world, that would be simply great.”
In the new parliament, LGBT+ representation will be proportionate to that of the general population but significantly higher than New Zealand’s 2018 general social survey, which was 3.5 per cent, according to Pink News.
Moreover, it will represent an important change. “A number of longstanding MPs – older, white, male – have left but they have been replaced by a much more diverse new intake – Maori, Pasifika, other ethnicities and the Rainbow community. Half of the Labour caucus are women. The Labour party and the Greens represent the contemporary face of New Zealand in Parliament,” Paul Spoonley, professor at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences of Massey University in Palmerston North, told The Independent.
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