Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown defends his leadership and time it took to call state of emergency

ANALYSIS: Nearly four months into his new job, Auckland’s mayor Wayne Brown is understandably still learning.

As the leader of a metropolitan city, which on Friday faced an unprecedented and fatal rain catastrophe, Brown showed he has plenty still to learn about political leadership in a civil emergency.

In an end-of-Saturday media conference shared with Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty and Transport Minister Michael Wood, the mayor struggled to grasp questions about his conduct on the day the rain came like never before.

Brown appeared to completely miss – under persistent questioning – the role of a mayor as a voice of calm, reassurance and good advice, in times when Aucklanders needed all of those things.

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The record 450mm rainfall in 24 hours, nearly three times the city’s past record, evolved in seriousness through Friday. But by early evening, chaos was unfolding.

Brown’s performance before assembled media on Saturday was a technical one, pointing out he formally declared a state of emergency immediately as he was advised to on Friday night, and was at his desk from 4pm, talking to McAnulty and the city’s emergency management leadership.

He appeared to miss questions about “communication” were about political leadership and communication, being out early, being seen by Aucklanders to be in charge, providing reassurance that all that could be done was being done.

Apart from a media statement, Brown’s first “live” involvement was a media conference called so hurriedly at 11.20pm on Friday night, that his office couldn’t get in touch with all media.

He either deliberately, or unwittingly, avoided one question by allowing a Fire and Emergency boss to step in with comment, and the council’s Emergency Management Controller answered another question directed at Brown.

The mayor, after being told by media of criticism by one councillor Josephine Bartley, started to suggest that maybe his voice was being crowded out by others, and that in other cities it was the mayor alone who spoke.

Except he didn’t speak. Not until 11.20pm on Friday, for those media who were managed to be invited.

Brown will hate the comparison, but his predecessor understood the place for a mayor in an unfolding crisis.

Phil Goff was sometimes too visible, but was a regular presence, a source of information and reassurance in the aftermath of the Sky City convention centre fire in 2019 – something his council had only a peripheral role in.

Being mayor is about more than crunching budget numbers and table-thumping to deliver election promises. It’s about being visibly there for Aucklanders when they expect him to.

Brown said he did everything he was advised by the experts to do. He put in the hours at his desk, and on Saturday. Unfortunately it was what he could have chosen to do, that was the issue.

Hipkins had to leave the media conference to catch a flight. Brown didn’t, but attempts to prolong questioning were brief, until his deputy Desley Simpson took him by the arm, and led him out the back door of the room at the Hobsonville Fire Station away from the media.