The thing about counting is that after 49, comes 50. Once we hit that milestone, there was always gonna be an article written. Man left, happened to be a woman that entered parliament. That's it. That's all this is. But you seem to really want to believe this isn't based on merit for some reason. It's not a main focus, parliament demographics consist of many different parties, and an even gender split isn't mandated in parliament at large, it just happened here. What would be the odds? Well, it's actually 60 women to 59 men if that helps

Edit: your assertion doesn't even make sense based on how our electoral system works, the parties just aren't in kahoots to get any sort of even gender split in parliament, it's not even really possible as there's no way of knowing ahead of time where the votes would land. Our second-largest party is only like 30% women and are set for a big win next election, so you can sleep easy knowing the pendulum will swing back the other way very soon

And yet, you've assumed they haven't been selecting based on merit and competence, based on what, the 50/50 split, which isn't even mandated at a parliamentary level and depends on the internal makeups and policies of many parties. To get to more women than men they'd still need to pass through 50/50, this is just an article about that milestone

So, if they were selecting based on "competence and merit" here, they should have selected a man instead? What an interesting take sir

Why are you assuming they didn't