The Expand

The "March for Democracy". Photo / Herald on Sunday

It wasn't, after all, the mother of all marches the organisers had hoped for.

Auckland businessman Colin Craig sank half a million of his own money into the so-called "march for democracy", hoping for a turnout of 50,000. He got between 4000 and 5000 - some way short of the 8000 or so who turned up for the Boobs on Bikes parade in September.

I'm daring to hope this signals a waning of interest in prolonging the already tiresome debate on the Section 59 amendment. But maybe it's just confusion on what the march stood for.

Was it binding citizens-initiated referendums?

"I don't have that agenda," Craig told a reporter. "My agenda is we've had three [referendums], there was a large majority. I think that any Government that respects the people will see 80 per cent is binding."

So, no and yes then.

Somewhere in the disgruntled mix of people ticked off at not getting their own way were the-right-to-hit-children campaigners headed by Bob McCoskrie and the lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key crowd led by Garth McVicar.

Apparently there were also people still upset that we have more than 99 MPs, or that we haven't kept the number of our firefighters at the same level as 1995 - which is what more than 80 per cent of the electorate who bothered to vote in two (thankfully) non-binding referendums seemed to want.

The catalyst for the march was the Government daring to ignore the result of the recent ambiguously worded citizens-initiated referendum on the child discipline law.

Which means the Government is clearly undemocratic. "The people are the boss and the Government has to listen to them," said Craig.

Well, yes and no.

The trouble with the might-is-right, majority rules brand of democracy has always been painfully obvious for those of us accustomed to occupying minority perches.

As Benjamin Franklin put it: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." In a straight-out numbers game, the lamb always loses.

But representative democracy, as advanced by 18th century British MP Edmund Burke, promotes a higher ideal built on notions of the common good.