Wild forecast revives folklore

By ALAN PERROTT

It's going to be wet on polling day this Saturday as the North Island gets caught in an "eggbeater effect".

The region will be in the midst of winds rotating clockwise around a low in the north and anticlockwise around a high in the south.

The collision in the middle means an election day of rain stretching from Northland to the Coromandel.

MetService weather ambassador Bob McDavitt says conditions will improve steadily as you move further south, but most areas will probably feel some rain.

Conventional wisdom has it that rain means a low turn-out - but Auckland University political scientist Raymond Miller doubts the theory still holds. He suspects it dates from days when car-owners were scarce.

In fact, other winter elections have had high turnouts. In July 1984, 93.7 per cent of voters turned out when PM Sir Robert Muldoon was ousted in a snap election.

And what about the theory that voters return Governments partly on the feel-good factor of All Black wins?

After all, the All Blacks have beaten arch-rivals Australia and South Africa in successive weekends.

Dr Miller knows of no academic investigation into the All Black factor and is reluctant to predict a Labour win on the back of two Tri-Nations victories.

In 1984, Sir Robert went down the gurgler after two rugby test wins over the French.

And the hopes of the resulting Labour Government for a third term ended in a crumpled post-Lange heap on a generally fine October day in 1990, despite the All Blacks' losing only one test in five (although the single loss, to Australia, was the last test before election day).

But if a rugby test result has ever been an election factor it was when National lost power in November 1999, less than a month after France beat the All Blacks in the World Cup semifinal. And the weather was dismal.

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