Sat, 21 Nov 2009 5:35p.m.
Despite an extensive advertising campaign, only 4000 showed up to the march - many of them pranksters out for a laugh
Around 4000 people have taken to the streets of central Auckland, calling on the Government to make referendums binding.
One man was arrested, and police shut down most of Queen St as protesters demanded that politicians be more responsive to public opinion.
They had many different bones to pick with the Government, but all with the same message: democracy.
It is the Government's repeated inaction on citizen-initiated referendums that was the catalyst for the protest.
"I'm marching cause if the Government had listened to the referendum in 1999 about violent crime, we would probably have 1000 more New Zealanders with us than we have now," said one protester 3 News spoke to.
"We've had three referendums of plus 80 percent, and they've ignored them all," said another.
In 1999 82 percent of New Zealanders voted to cut the number of MPs in one referendum, and 92 percent supported a more victim-centred justice system in another.
Both referendums were ignored.
"You've just got to wonder what it's going to take until the politicians wake up," says Garth McVicar of lobby group the Sensible Sentencing Trust.
"The public is telling them what we want, every poll is telling them what we want. We don't want violent criminals on the street - and yet they seem incapable of listening."
Today's protest was sparked by the Government's failure to act on the so-called anti-smacking referendum, and many wore placards aimed at Prime Minister John Key.
"We'd ask him to be loyal to the huge proportion of New Zealand families who are saying, 'Let's get this law right and go after the real causes of child abuse,'" says Bob McCoskrie of pro-smacking lobby group Family First.
But children's commissioner John Angus has taken a stand against the march. He says people who are genuinely interested in children's welfare would have been better off staying home and spending time with their children.
"I think it's time to move on," says Mr Angus. "I think lots of New Zealanders want to move on too. I think we should be focussing on how to bring our children up well in New Zealand, rather than on how, when, where and with what we hit them."
Organisers say it is time politicians stopped talking at New Zealanders and started listening to them
3 News
