The hikoi that arrived at Parliament this week to protest the Takutai Moana (Marine and Coastal) Bill did not have the numbers mustered in 2004.
The Maori Party will claim this reflects widespread support for their Bill.
Party President Pem Bird and co-leader Pita Sharples have already claimed overwhelming support for the Bill in different electorate meetings.
However, there is a world of difference between meetings manned by electorate memberships and the opinion of all Maori voters in the wider electorate.
The recent Horizon Maori Research poll showed Maori support for the Bill had halved to just 11% since the last Te Karere Digipoll, while opposition has risen 6.2% to 41%.
Seventy-one of 72 iwi and hapu submissions to the select committee opposed the Bill, 75% requesting substantial amendments or postponement until a more enduring solution is found.
Why so few on the hikoi?
The large hikoi of the 1980s, 2004 and the battle for Maori representation on the Auckland Super City were driven by an upwelling against Pakeha racism.
In this instance, the hikoi is marching against other Maori.
Maori Party support for the Bill has stunned Maori into silence rather than action upon an execration for mobilising against other Maori.
The build-up to this protest was eerie.
There are many repeats of history.
The main opposition to the Bill has come from one Maori MP, Hone Harawira, just as it did in 2004 when Tariana Turia opposed the original Foreshore and Seabed Act.
Labour allowed Ms Turia to speak out in 2004 although that ultimately forced her resignation.
This time around, the Maori Party forced Hone Harawira to resign.
In 2004, Parekura Horomia and other Labour Party MPs said the foreshore legislation was the best that could be achieved under the circumstances.
Ms Turia has said the same about this Bill.
Both groups of Maori MPs have criticised each other for promoting separate insignificantly different Bills, in the name of good for Maori.
Maori reject both.
There was an air of sadness and betrayal about the hikoi as it marched forth along a trail of broken promises by a Maori leadership who also evoke great respect.
The original Act denied access to the courts to determine customary title.
This Bill restores that right but constrains the courts from using precedents in domestic and international common law by pre-defining customary title in a way that denudes it of significance.
The Maori Party has reneged on a promise to withdraw support for the Bill if Maori opposed it.
There was resistance in some areas to the hikoi, particularly among the higher echelons of Ngati Porou and Tainui, who negotiated shadow settlements before the last election.
One expects National and the Maori Party to expedite coastline settlements for them as soon as possible.
National and the Maori Party will see this as a way of defusing any backlash from both the Bill and the dumping of Mr Harawira.
There will be a backlash.
In addition to more Maori opposing the Act than supporting it, the latest digipoll showed 50% of Maori voters were dissatisfied with the relationship with National, including 45% of Maori Party supporters.
Robust settlements will go some way to mitigating that.
Hikoi numbers were also affected because the split between Mr Harawira and his colleagues reflects a wider schism emerging within Maoridom, between a new middle class that is willing to compromise with government in the name of progress, and a larger Maoridom who feel left out of claimed gains.
The Horizon poll showed although 70% of Maori care about the foreshore issue, 45% are either neutral or don't care about this particular solution.
This is directly related to the fact more than 70% of Maori felt they were left out of treaty issues at an iwi level.
Many remember the 10,000 who marched against the denying of dedicated Maori seats on the new Auckland Super City Council, only to be given a nine-member board that gave mana whenua, who make up 20% of Auckland's Maori population, 80% of the seats and the unilateral right to decide who represented the 80% urban Maori.
More than 20,000 marched on the 2004 hikoi.
Many thousands more voted for the Maori Party on the promises of a greater justice.
That promise has not been fulfilled.
The Maori Party has supported a Bill because it has become too wedded to the idea of obtaining utu over Labour for what it did in 2004, overly wedded to the relationship with National and the charismatic John Key, and simply wedded to power.
This week's small hikoi made an important statement about an unjust piece of discriminatory legislation driven through Parliament with indecent haste - and the widening gap between the Maori haves and have nots.
Dr Rawiri Taonui is a Maori political commentator and academic.
