About Wayne Brown’s dereliction of duty

Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, April 15th, 2023 - 22 comments
Categories: auckland supercity, local government, supercity - Tags:

Dear journalists,

Please do not let Mayor Wayne Brown off the hook regarding his appalling dereliction of duty.

What is emerging from the review that the mayor himself commissioned, as well as more documentation that has come to light in the wake of said review, is a real lack of leadership from the mayor and his office.

Questions must be asked, and answers need to be provided. The mayor and his communications team in his office failed Aucklanders in a time of crisis.

As reported by Newshub, the mayor had a state of emergency declaration template on his desk by 7:30pm. That was 2 hours before he signed the declaration.

First question, why did it take him 2 hours after receiving the template to actually sign it and officially declare a state of emergency?

The release of documents reported by RNZ show that a local board deputy chair emailed him at 5:45pm. There had also been phone calls, texts and other correspondence from other elected officials before, at and after this time.

Second question, why did he and his team not release something to advise Aucklanders what was happening and what to do?

It was clear that there was major flooding across the region by 7pm, so the third question is why didn’t the mayor stand up council facilities for people to go to?

There are many other questions that must be asked about the mayor’s lack of engagement on that night and that Auckland Anniversary weekend, so journalists please ask them.

Additionally, with the release of the Mike Bush-led review, the mayor has been conspicuous in his absence so question four must be, why isn’t he fronting up?

As Simon Wilson notes, creating a functional culture in an organisation is the responsibility of the boss. In a council, that boss is the mayor. It has been clear from the beginning of his term that Wayne is not interested in building relationships or a functional culture in the council.

The problem with that attitude is it creates an unhealthy culture in an organisation. There have been claims of staff suffering from lift anxiety as the mayor makes disparaging comments about their roles in the council. Staff are anxious, stressed and many good people have left already.

So question five is why is the mayor so willing to throw the council staff under the bus all the time?

And question six is why does he always want to blame others? We have heard him moan and whinge about the previous mayor, councillors around the governing table with him who were re-elected (bizarrely some of his staunchest supporters among elected members, including his deputy mayor are re-elected councillors – seven by my count), the chief executive,  council staff, the wider council leadership, even the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers and other MPs. In fact, it almost feels like the first thing out of his mouth is a whine about someone and how ‘Wayne has inherited a mess to fix’.

But that his blaming of others isn’t the only thing that must be challenged. He has subsequently claimed that he hadn’t be briefed properly, that “the ball” hadn’t been passed to him (Newstalk ZM interview with Jack Tame as reported in the Herald) and that he was fresh in the job.

His excuses are weak. He was the mayor of the Far North from 2007 to 2013. As a former mayor, Wayne would have an idea of the processes involved and could have acted much faster if he wanted to.

So, question seven is why didn’t Wayne step in and show some leadership by taking control earlier instead of sitting back?

And given his previous role as Far North mayor, question eight is why does Wayne like to try and pretend that he is not a politician and want us to cut him some slack all the time?

But the questions for elected members shouldn’t be only directed to Wayne. There is another person around the governing body table who needs to be asked some hard questions and that person is Councillor Sharon Stewart.

Sharon has been a councillor for the Howick ward since the inception of the supercity in 2010 (before that she was a councillor in the Manukau City Council for 12 years).

Not only that, but Sharon has been the chair for the Civil Defence Committee at Auckland Council since before 2016.

Mike Bush’s review highlights that there was poor communication between key people, including Sharon as chair of the Civil Defence Committee. The review also found that the council knew of gaps in the city’s preparedness back in 2016.

Given she has been the only chair of the Civil Defence Committee since before 2016, Sharon has known of these gaps for seven years. What has she done about closing these gaps? And why have these gaps still not been closed after 7 years?

If Sharon was a government minister and this kind of disaster occurred in a ministry she was responsible for, she would be sacked. Will she resign her post? Step aside for someone more capable? Will Wayne fire her from her chairperson role?

Then there was the cringeworthy interview on AM this week.

In it, Sharon took a leaf out of the mayor’s playbook, avoided responsibility and played the blame game. She blamed staff turnover, Covid-19 and the chief executive.

But she must be held to account for her ineptitude.

Good leadership takes responsibility for problems, comes up with timely solutions, and fronts up.

Good leadership doesn’t play a blame game and doesn’t hide when the proverbial brown stuff hits the fan.

So, journalists, please hold these elected officials to account. Don’t back down. Make LGOIMA requests and don’t let these people off the hook.

They failed us in January and we cannot let them fail us again.

Wuming

22 comments on “About Wayne Brown’s dereliction of duty ”

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  1. newsense 1
    15 April 2023 at 1:30 pm

    No, no, no- it’s the CEO. You remember all the famous Auckland City CEOs? The ones with statues and all kinds of institutions with their names on?

    Elected leaders are just there to do what the CEO wants!

    I read it in the Herald so it must have come straight from the ex-tobacco guy or any of the blame shifting staff the mayor hired especially…

  2. Stephen 2
    15 April 2023 at 2:20 pm

    Simon Wilson and Todd Niall will.

    The rest will interview their keyboards, and the news cycle will roll on.

  3. tc 3
    15 April 2023 at 2:31 pm

    Leadership NACT styles.

    This is an experienced mayor with previous C level roles supported by the best paid spinners like hooton.

    Serves as a warning for the general election if this is what experience delivers imagine greenhorns like rimmer and 7 houses in charge.

  4. Cricklewood 4
    15 April 2023 at 4:04 pm

    Undoubtably Wayne Brown didnt step up to the plate, but the general dissarray needs to be sheeted home to the very highly paid senior managers within council and the Cco's.

    That the systems and those in charge of them failed so badly invites questions of our former mayors as well as the current.

  5. Thinker 5
    15 April 2023 at 6:03 pm

    A smorgasbord of thoughts from an ex public servant, any references are to the articles linked to the main item and this one https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-floods-council-ceo-jim-stabback-left-work-to-go-home-during-peak-of-emergency-response/3JTAGYSDZ5EWFIUIALKOCU7J6A/#:~:text=Auckland%20Council%20chief%20executive%20Jim,have%20been%20at%20its%20peak.:

    1. Brown can't say he isn't a politician. He was a politician the day he filled in the nomination form.

    2. He calls himself "Mr Fix-it" but his spin doctors said part of the problem was his faulty ipad. How many Mayors of such a large city can't say "Get me an ipad quick, and log me into it. There's a crisis and I need to show leadership". If a faulty ipad tests Brown's command-centre skills, then the new Minister for Auckland had better watch him like a hawk.

    3. Why did he need an ipad at all. He should have been at the heart of the action in the Emergency Management bunker. His position as Mayor probably implies he needs to move about a bit, but essentially he became part of the Emergency Management team and shouldn't have remained aloof, in my opinion.

    4. Reading the lines between the lines, Brown and Stabback were only the same building together for 45 minutes. Brown arrived at work at 4pm, Stabback had gone home at 4.45pm, just as the storm was nearing the point at which leadership should have been shown.

    There's no mention of Stabback and Brown actually talking to each other during those 45 minutes. If they did, and if Brown really is Mr Fix-it, you would have to assume Brown would have instructed Stabback to remain at his post. "Get me the CEO" should have been Brown's first order on arriving at 4pm.

    5. Stabback says he was consulting with the council’s director of governance and CCO partnerships, Phil Wilson. The articles about Mike Bush's report don't say how many of the so-called "leadership team" were on deck that afternoon, but we have to remember it was the start of a holiday weekend. The collective material smacks of a self-indulgent leadership team, many of whom did not understand the old public sector adage that "you can delegate responsibility but you can't delegate accountability". Being accountable, they should all have been there. Collectively, according to AC's website, they form the city's "Executive Leadership Team". Refer this quote from the website: "The chief executive appoints the executive team (also referred to as the Executive Leadership team or ELT). TOGETHER they are responsible for the council's operation and service delivery." (my capitalisation) I really hope there is a journalist reading this who will ask the question as to how many of the ELT were in the office between 5pm and 7pm on the night the CD emergency was declared. (https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/about-auckland-council/how-auckland-council-works/executive-team/Pages/about-our-executive-team.aspx)

    6. In struggling through the AC website to find out more about the council committee, I found it only meets quarterly.

    7. Most importantly, many have formed an impression of a current Mayor who is almost reluctant to be so. He says he isn't a politician (at heart, say), he doesn't like speaking publicly, he doesn't spend a full week in the office because he apparently doesn't see the role as being very well-paid. Sometimes, he'd rather be playing tennis with friends. Yet, he'd had a taste of mayoralty from his time in the Far North, so none of the role should have been a surprise to him when he filled out the nomination form. Therefore, we are left wondering just what it is that motivated Brown to stand? What does he want to get out of the job? Who backed this reluctant politician's election campaign and what is their agenda for him, if any?

    • newsense 5.1
      16 April 2023 at 9:39 am

      According to an article/opinion piece at the time on stuff I believe he was highly critical about a decision to call a state of emergency before he was Mayor in the Far North. Unfortunately I can’t find it on a few google trawls.

      That suggested that it may have been some macho ego thing or idea that calling an SoE was soft or that, as he said later, everything and everyone was already working fine and didn’t need any help.
      The article went on to say the then mayor was shown to have acted correctly post event.

  6. AB 6
    16 April 2023 at 10:50 am

    I'm dreaming of a fixed Auckland.

    Of the many possible meanings of 'fixed' – the most likely seems to be the one that means a jack-up, something sorted out in advance, a conspiracy. Though the meaning of fixed that is a synonym for castrated might have its advocates too.

    • Incognito 6.1
      16 April 2023 at 11:59 am

      They have been trying to ‘fix’ Auckland forever. The difference between some and other ‘fixers’ is that some only look back, replace like-for-like, and repair, whilst others look forward and try to do better job and make things stronger & different than before with different more appropriate solutions (that may cost more). Some problems remain essentially the same and compound over time, like interest on a loan, while other problems are new(er) and less foreseeable and thus less easily managed. These are the facts of life of the largest population centre and local economy in and of NZ.

      For example, try plan for Covid-19 and its fall-out over multiple years or plan for global events affecting the global economy. The simple fact is that you really cannot except for building resilience, in the system and in the people. Simply ‘fixing’ things and ‘repairing’ is grossly inadequate and a dereliction of duty & responsibility.

  7. Ad 7
    16 April 2023 at 11:35 am

    Best Mayor over Auckland Council was Len Brown. His waterfront, CRL and eastern busway programs are the most useful things this Council has achieved.

    Wayne Brown simply has no idea about how to operate a structurally separated governance entity.

    His old bullying ways are failing him.

  8. Anne 8
    16 April 2023 at 11:37 am

    Q&A this morning:

    https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/04/16/im-not-a-hugger-wayne-brown-defends-his-flood-response/

    He pretends to take some of the blame, but in reality passes the buck on to everyone other than himself. So out of his depth its mind boggling.

    The second half of the interview not yet available.

    Tane was letting him off lightly. (They are apparently neighbours). Not so Kieran McAnulty. There seemed to me to be a difference in Tane's attitude towards both interviewees. One was semi friendly – more noticeable in the second half. The McAnulty interview came across as mildly hostile. McAnulty handled it with ease.

  9. newsense 9
    16 April 2023 at 12:22 pm

    Refuses to accept his job in a crisis is to reassure, inform and protect people and property with timely and reliable information.

    Our best leaders have been two to four decades younger than him recently and it shows.

  10. Incognito 10
    16 April 2023 at 1:25 pm

    The one thing Wayne Brown has to fix pronto is communications, his communications, to be more precise. He cannot fix anything else until he has dealt with this, as everything flows from and through this.

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018886103/a-rainy-day-for-the-mayor-s-media-freeze-out

    This begs the question whether Wayne Brown has what it takes and is up for the job. Of course, he’d say “Yes” and that he has the ‘mandate’ to prove it. I’d say that actions speak louder than words but I doubt Mr Brown will get it.

  11. Mike the Lefty 11
    16 April 2023 at 9:14 pm

    Note to Aucklanders:

    Next mayoral election try electing a leader rather than a big-talking personality – they make much better mayors.

  12. Res Publica 12
    17 April 2023 at 10:44 am

    I used to work in local government and was one of the people that would be in the room advising controllers and mayors over when to declare an emergency. Admittedly in a much smaller council where the lines of communication were much shorter and the CE and councillors knew all of us personally.

    It's disheartening to hear public servants get pushed under the bus after an emergency.
    Most of us aren't even emergency management professionals. We might be planners, or customer service people, or business analysts by day. But choose to step up and look after our communities.

    We spend a lot of time training and planning, but at the end of the day the response is only as good as the decisions made by elected officials and controllers.

    Most of the time the people on the ground know what the problems are and try to fix them, but get blocked or shot down by senior management and councillors who are often unwilling to spend money on emergency planning.

    Or, when money is available it's for things like sandbags which make the public feel good and like council is doing something. But nobody stops to actually think about the logistics: you have to get sand from somewhere, and someone has to fill them and transport them.

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