Shamubeel Eaqub on small parties

The Herald reports:

A top economist has labelled small political parties’ policies “mad” and a serious risk to New Zealand.

Addressing the Shareholders Association’s annual conference at the weekend, NZIER principal economist Shamubeel Eaqub said National and Labour – despite their rhetoric – were largely centrist in their policies.

“What scares me are the policies that we see in the fringes and the fringe parties and they scare me a great deal because a few of them, quite frankly, are quite mad,” he said. “So when you vote on the 20th of September, you’re not voting for National or Labour, you’re trying to keep out the influence of some of those crazy policies.”

Eaqub said he did not want to go into the parties or policies he was most concerned about.

“I don’t want to get into bad-mouthing particular political parties. Most of the small parties are not pursuing policies that are good for New Zealand – they are pursuing policies that are good for a small constituency.”

That comment prompted a round of applause from the 300-strong conference audience.

This is true. Major parties tend to look at the overall impact of their policies. The small parties are targetting small segments of the population, so have policies that benefit their core voters, at the expense of everyone else.

If there is a National-led Government, National is looking to be around 95% of the Government. Won’t be 100%, but will be 95% or so, which means the influence of the minor parties will be quite modest.

But on current polls, if Labour do stitch together a deal, they would be barely 50% of the Government. the minor parties would comprise the other 50%. Think about what that means.