Hearing this morning that New Plymouth’s Mayor Andrew Judd will not be seeking re-election this year, I have to say I wasn’t surprised, but I was a little sad.

Mr Judd has been publically spat on in front of his children, received endless hate mail and even been told by another Taranaki mayor to stop embarrassing the region – so it’s safe to say he’s not overly popular.

However, I think he’s done a great job and the country needs more politicians like him.

Andrew is a victim of a democratic system that often leaves the minority out to dry.

The point I’m trying to make is best described by a political line often used, that sounds something like “At the end of the day, I think most New Zealanders would agree that...”

Now that on most occasions is a valid statement and describes how democracy, the system we use, works, and I would not trade it for any other system that’s been dreamt up.

However, with the majority always winning, it’s the smaller populations that simply don’t have the numbers that often fail to have their voices heard.

Leaders often ignore this minority in order to stay popular and that’s exactly what Andrew Judd didn’t do.

He tried to help the minority and it has lead to his downfall.

The man has had a whirl-wind three years in office, by first sweeping into power over incumbent Harry Duynhoven, looked to help aggrieved Pakeha fighting against Maori over land issues, before making a complete u-turn and looking to help Maori resolve issues that are 160 years old.

When he first got into office he was tired of Maori land claims and wanted them to go away.

Then through the magic of education, he realised Maori have every right to fight for what is theirs and went about making changes to enable them to do so, even describing himself as a recovering racist.

The most defining point of his tenure came when he tried to implement a Maori Ward onto the council, allowing Maori a seat at the table –  the same thing we have in Parliament.

Now councils by law must have some form of Maori representation within them, so when Andrew made it into office he approached local Maori to ask if the current form of representation was effective, they said no, so he pushed for a seat at the council.

What followed was a tirade of abuse towards the mayor, and a referendum that saw 83-percent of voters vote against the establishment of the ward (about 15-percent of Taranaki identify as Maori).

After the referendum, Maori resident Grant Knuckley said “We know where they stand. It’s loud and clear that we’re the minority.”

The ward failed, and you could argue that Judd did too.

It was a shame, and it showed the sad side of democracy.

Almost any political commentator would probably have told him what he did was political suicide, I think even he knew it, but that does not mean it wasn’t the right thing to do.

Josh Price is Newstalk ZB's journalist in New Plymouth