Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown remains tight-lipped about whether he’ll stand for re-election next year, but is keen to tout private polling showing his apparent popularity.
The first-term mayor says he hasn’t yet decided on his political future while speculation grows. It remains unclear who Brown’s opponents might be.
Speaking to Q+A, he said “Mrs Brown wasn’t that mad” about the idea of him running again, but that “lots and lots of people” had approached him about another campaign.
“Lots and lots of people come up every day and say, ‘come on, run.’” he said.
“And I said: ‘Last time I put a whole lot of my own money in. You raise it this time and see how you go.’ How much do you really want me to be there? That probably would come pretty easily from the feedback I’ve got.”
He claimed to have private polling showing that he was more popular than Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, presumably in Auckland.
“We’ve done some private polling, and I’m more popular than the Prime Minister at the moment,” he said. “What I’m concentrating on is doing the best for the ratepayers of Auckland — they seem to be quite liking that.”
By his assessment, the mayor said he had made “progress” on his five pre-election pledges to “fix Auckland”, but conceded it was far from mission accomplished, adding he wanted to “bed in” changes so they “couldn’t be undone”.
“I’ve made progress in all, but they’re not bedded in such that they can be reversed.”
Former National MPs Paula Bennett, Simon Bridges, restaurateur Leo Molloy, and North Shore councillor Richard Hills have been suggested as possible contenders.
When asked about the possibility of Bennett running, Brown responded: “Who?”
Dynamics in the mayoral race are hard to predict, given the idea itself of a single elected mayor governing the entire Auckland region has only existed for voters since 2010.
The five local elections over the past 14 years have not featured an incumbent losing, only retiring, while Brown was the first non-Labour-aligned candidate to win the mayoralty three years ago. Next year’s election remains open for left-field challengers.
In April, Brown said he was “carrying on as if I will” in response to questions about running again, saying he doesn’t “need to make that decision for ages”.
The month before he was elected mayor, Brown was non-committal about taking a second term, but told Newsroom it was “probably more than I could handle.”
PM’s job ‘relatively easy compared to mine’ – Brown
Speaking to Q+A, Brown was asked about his reflection on how the bulk of his term had gone, which included last year’s Anniversary Weekend floods. He said having to work with 20 councillors, each with their own views, was a “bit of a learning curve”.
“This is a tough gig, and I’ve pointed out to the Prime Minister, that his is relatively easy compared to mine, because he has a Cabinet of people who are in the room there at his at his leisure, at his request,” he said.
“I have 20 councillors who are all good in their own way. They’re all representing their own area as best as they can. They represent a pretty weird and the complete range of the political spectrum.”
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown wants a peak hour payment of up to $5 on two choked stretches of city motorway (Source: Breakfast)
Brown suggested he believed there was “good team behaviour” emerging, citing his successful push to capitalise a new “future fund” with his council’s share-holding in Auckland Airport.
“The airport [shares], which was treated like some sort of a family pet by some of them, is now going to be funding a future fund for Auckland, which will be terrific in years to come,” he said.
“That was a hard decision for some of the hard left people, but they’ve thought it through and they’ve come across and backed it — the thinking ones have anyhow — so that’s been a little bit of a learning curve.
“And the media, I just turned off them, at the start and got on with the job, which upset them a bit. But we’ve now come to a reasonable relationship, I think.”
Q+A with Jack Tame is funded through New Zealand On Air
