Bob Jones: Give voters some human drama, not compulsory voting

British House of Commons leader Geoff Hoon proposes Australian-style compulsory voting because the spread of non-voting, he says, "threatens the long-term legitimacy of our political system."

That's bloody rich coming from him. As the then Defence Minister, Hoon - in tandem with Tony Blair - threatened the British political system more than anyone in the nation's history by inducing cynicism in lying about imaginary weapons of mass destruction and promoting the illegal invasion of Iraq.

Compulsion does not provide moral legitimacy for the system - or anything else for that matter. It's compulsory to pay taxes but that doesn't mean the public like doing so, as our now poll-panicking Government is discovering. It's compulsory to keep left when driving but there's not a woman in this country who does, which doesn't necessarily reflect any innate criminality, just typical female belligerency.

New Zealand has a relatively high voter turnout without compulsion. On the other hand, America and Britain don't. If they shifted their elections to Saturdays I suspect they would see a lift in voter participation.

Having said that, there has been a steady, albeit minor, erosion in New Zealand voter turnout over the past quarter century and in one respect that's a good thing if, as I suspect, it reflects a reduced government impact on our lives.

Our elections remind me of the Olympics. Ninety per cent of the Olympic events are mind-numbingly tedious spectacles which only a lunatic would dream of watching.

If it was not contrary to New Zealand's international treaty obligations about cruel and unusual punishment then we could eliminate recidivism by compelling our more hardened criminals to watch, say, double-sculls-rowing videos all day. A few weeks of that and they would never offend again.

Yet millions of New Zealanders did happily watch the Olympics last year because we flushed up the winners, backed by the underlying human interest in any competition.

So, too, with elections. Unless there's a major issue gripping people - and there rarely is - public fascination rests more on that human interest implicit in the contests than any issues. Political fervour died two decades ago with the general defeat by the right over the left. Nevertheless, like the Olympics, when the contest arises we still all sit up and become involved.

Will the Maori Party win seven, some or no seats? Will Act, United and the Greens survive? Who will prevail in the televised leaders' debates? Will all the party leaders take a cue from 2002 when the normally mild-mannered political chameleon Peter Dunne contrived a tantrum in favour of families (I say contrived as no party was campaigning against families) and amazingly found himself heading a shell-shocked team of new MPs, unknown even to him?

Mind you, as 93 per cent of voters were not moved by Dunne's outburst, this suggests the existence of a sizeable market for an anti-family political party. Dunne will back any vote-winning proposition, so if United falls by the wayside this time, then expect him back at the next election leading an anti-family party on the basis of that 93 per cent potential.

He'll probably become Prime Minister then.

None of the current crop of leaders - Rodney Hide excepted - is any good at rages. Winston can put on a reasonably good performance, but only for about a minute before crumbling in laughter. The all-time rage master was Rob Muldoon who barnstormed the country in 1975 and succeeded in persuading voters that, failing a change of government, the end of the world was nigh.

What's marvellous about the coming election is that until recently it was written off as a Government walk-over but suddenly it's become a cliff-hanger. Don Brash has discovered voters have had enough of excessive taxes; funding breakfast in bed for Maori, bogus art, and pretend universities; and a host of "other people's money" outrages. Aided by an advertising campaign in the form of devastatingly brilliant National billboards, we now have a true championship fight to cheer on, with everyone sitting ringside.

It would be marvellous if the TAB opened a book on the election and its many individual contests, as occurs in Britain. I'm not a betting man but I'd certainly be in that.

If public participation in the democratic process is deemed a good thing then there would be no better way to encourage it than by the TAB offering odds.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY