Labour battle formidable Key and perception of irrelevancy

National's John Key presents a huge hurdle to the Opposition.

It's election year ... always great fun, although not nearly as much as pre-MMP, a fact reflected by the declining voter turnout.

Under first-past-the-post, the campaign and election night were gripping affairs with usually about 10 marginal swing seats making exciting television as their booth results trickled in. Some relied on absentee votes reported days later - these always going National's way, although no longer in this age of mass travel.

Sadly, there's now few seats of interest, which is one reason why today's MPs are relatively unknown. Another is there are way too many MPs - plus the fact that 50 are unelected and there via the list. Today it's the party vote which mostly counts.

Last election, only 74 per cent of the electorate voted. One must revert to the 19th century to match this, scattered communities and poor communications sometimes delivering turnouts then as low as 50 per cent.

Contrast that with the four post-war elections which had almost 100 per cent voting. That reflected the degree of our politicisation and the drabness of post-war life - elections then being our Olympic Games equivalent.

People cared passionately about politics and were actively involved. Indeed, in the 1970s National boasted of having the world's highest party membership on a population basis. It was certainly high, as also was Labour's, but the claim was exaggerated, buying a raffle ticket often constituting membership.

Still, a typical electorate then could have a paid-up membership of a 1000 or more, plus branches, each with their chairman and committee. Being a delegate at the party's annual conference was a sought-after prestige role and those conferences, often 1000 or more strong, were given saturation media coverage.

Today, they're sparsely reported non-events, so too party membership, now minuscule. During election campaigns, candidates addressed nightly and weekend well-attended meetings while the party leaders toured the nation to sell-out audiences.

The last such passionate election was 1984, reflected by its 94 per cent voter turnout. But, ironically, it was the incoming Labour government's critical economic reforms - as was occurring worldwide - along with the collapse of the socialist economies, which ended the underlying left-right economic debate with victory to the right.

In turn, that killed off the philosophic divide between the parties and, with it, public involvement. Today, differences between Labour and National are inconsequential - rather it's about imagery, personalities and varying policies to deal with current issues, so it's understandable why only a few deluded tribalists still belong to parties.

But the election is still a race and, thus, interesting, more so as polls suggest it will be tight with National and a Labour-Greens combine currently polling 50/50.

The expected thriving economy should consolidate the government's support, although one suspects most folk will read about this promised new prosperity rather than actually feel it.

National's prime asset is John Key. He's been an excellent prime minister, his genuine affability and popularity, plus his sharp intellect comprising a huge hurdle for David Cunliffe going toe-to-toe with him in debates. Additionally, my press gallery contacts report apathy in Labour's caucus through distaste for their leader which doesn't augur well for an impassioned campaign.

Labour have rightly identified their main problem - namely, getting out the vote. Overseas studies show that when the wealth gap widens, low income sectors stop voting, possibly because they feel politics is irrelevant to them. Much is made of the third parties deciding who is in government, specifically New Zealand First and the Maori Party. That's presumptuous. Neither might be there after the election - Winston Peters was just under 5 per cent, then just over in the last two elections, while the Maori Party is in disarray and their seats may revert to Labour.

Then there's Christchurch which, unexpectedly, backed the government heavily last time in the all-important party vote, but polls suggest will not this year. So the election outcome is undoubtedly up in the air.

Will Peter Dunne get up again? Probably - he's an excellent electorate MP.

Can Act find an attractive leader that Epsom can vote for? Probably.

This will dismay the press gallery who were hugely looking forward to Colin Craig and the Conservative Party's arrival and soliciting his views on whether the Earth is flat and other such pressing issues. This bloke's an insignificant lightweight who has received ridiculously unwarranted publicity.

Still, with all these question marks, the Prime Minister could be forgiven for envying the recent Azerbaijan presidential election in which the results were accidently released the day before anyone actually voted. After all, we all seek certainty in our lives.

Despite its efficiency that's not a goer here but National could consider organising cloud-seeding aircraft over south and west Auckland on election day.