Editorial: Major pitfalls in making votes binding

About 5000 motorcyclists roared into Wellington this week and the Government backed away from an accident levy increase recommended by the board of the ACC. Many times that number voted to restore a parental right to violence this year and the Government was unmoved. Is this fair?

A "march for democracy" in Queen St tomorrow will say no. Instigators of the smacking referendum have made common cause with similarly disappointed campaigns to demand that citizens-initiated referendums become binding. But if they think it unfair that a rough and ready "bikoi" succeeded where properly conducted postal ballots have failed, they should think again.

The bikers' apparent success - ACC Minister Nick Smith told them the Government is unlikely to agree to the full increase - shows our system of government is not impervious to public pressure. A good argument, forcefully presented, can be persuasive. A poor one, promoted on emotion and confusion, can be ignored. This is how democracy works.

Tomorrow's march organisers are advocating a different sort of democracy: "direct democracy" in which binding decisions are made by a majority of citizens who bother to vote in referendums. This country's law has provided for citizens to petition for non-binding referendums on any issue since 1994. If Parliament had made those referendums binding, we would have been saddled by now with some strange decisions.

The number of paid firefighters would have been frozen at the number employed on January 1, 1995. That is what 87.8 per cent of voters wanted at the first referendum, initiated by opponents of a change to the way firefighters were deployed.

The number of MPs would have been frozen at 99 rather than the 120 a royal commission recommended for MMP. A smaller House would reduce proportional representation, which was chosen by referendum. Consistency would be a certain casualty of direct democracy.

At a referendum in 1999 nearly 92 per cent endorsed a call for the criminal justice system to put more emphasis on victims' restitution and compensation, plus minimum sentences and hard labour for all violent offences. Parliament introduced victims' impact statements at sentencings and decreed five years' non-parole for all serious violence. But the Sensible Sentencing Trust was evidently unsatisfied. It is a co-sponsor of tomorrow's march.

All of these referendums produced majorities in the region of the 87.4 per cent that wanted a smack to be permissible "as part of good parental correction" a few months ago. The Government is able to over-ride that decision because the question was biased, the voters were under a misapprehension that a smack for any purpose is now illegal. Few realised that the law expressly permits reasonable force for a range of stated purposes.

The issue, in short, was not as straight-forward as the citizens' initiative pretended. It was a subject better left to elected representatives with the time and interest to study the legal subtleties and social implications. If their legislation resulted in unreasonable prosecutions or caused too many difficulties for parents the representatives stand to suffer at the next election.

That is how representative democracy works. Decisions are made with advice, consultation and deliberation by people who must seek endorsement at elections. Rule by referendum would be far more rigid, which is why it is suitable for constitutional arrangements but not for the ordinary grind of good government.

If non-binding referendums have been a recipe for disappointment, binding polls in California have been a fiscal disaster. Many of those marching for direct democracy tomorrow would be the first to regret it.