New Auckland mayor Wayne Brown has made the council’s transport agency his first target, calling for its board to resign, and the chair Adrienne Young-Cooper did so immediately.
Brown said there was no agency about which Aucklanders were angrier, and “the board of directors should heed the message from the election and resign”.
The call came in a statement which Brown described as a “letter to Aucklanders” which initially he would not provide to Stuff, and at the same time that it emerged Young-Cooper said: “I willingly exit the role.”
Wayne Brown defeated Efeso Collins with a resounding 50,000 vote provisional margin and said he had a mandate to move on the policies he’d campaigned on, such as a clean-sweep of boards at council agencies.
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Sacking directors is not a policy that appears on his website, but one he spoke regularly about.
Young-Cooper would not comment further on her immediate decision to go, but appeared to accept that governance of a council-controlled organisation (CCO) is most effective when relationships with its political leaders are good.
“There are many talented and dedicated people serving the people of Auckland at AT. They deserve respect,” she said in her statement.
A mass resignation of directors at Auckland Transport creates a potential leadership void at a time when the organisation is also trying to appoint a new chief executive.
Ricky Wilson/Stuff
Auckland’s new mayor Wayne Brown after being told he had won.
Brown has stopped short of naming people he would like on the board, but at debates talked of a bus company owner, and a member of a small transport users advocacy group.
His “letter” referred to AT’s “owning up to massive and unexpected disruptions” on the city’s rail network in 2023, although the project to replace the foundations under the rail lines is entirely the work of state-owned KiwiRail, with AT left to manage its announcement.
Director appointments of CCOs are not made by the mayor alone, but come via a shortlist drawn up by a selection panel in accordance with council criteria, and signed off by the Appointments and Performance Review Committee, made up of councillors and members of the Independent Maori Statutory Board (IMSB).
Ricky Wilson/Stuff
Auckland’s new mayor Wayne Brown preparing his victory speech with campaign advisor Matthew Hooton.
Brown will have his first meetings this week with councillors, with five new faces, and with councillors representing the previous “status quo”, a narrow minority around the 21-seat table.
Re-elected North Shore ward councillor Chris Darby, who had been the liaison councillor with Auckland Transport’s board, did not wish to comment on the mayor’s call.
Brown and a core team of new mayoral staff, along with interim advisors including political commentator and strategist Matthew Hooton, will arrive at the council officers on Monday to start a round of briefings and meetings, ahead of the October 28 swearing in of the fifth Auckland Council.
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