The right’s last desperate throw of the dice in Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, September 16th, 2022 - 18 comments
Categories: auckland supercity, efeso collins, local government, national, supercity, uncategorized - Tags:

The Auckland mayoralty has entered into a very interesting state.  The voting papers are printed and will start to be delivered today.  It is too late to pull out.  This needed to happen weeks ago.

Yet despite this National’s preferred candidate, Viv Beck has purported to pull out of the race.

https://twitter.com/VivBeckForMayor/status/1570534722681569280

Her campaign has been struggling for a while.  A series of leaks showed that forces on the right were attempting to kneecap her clearly with the view that the only viable candidate on the right was Wayne Brown.

As I said earlier I thought that from this time Beck was no longer viable as a candidate and that for the right Wayne Brown appears to be their only chance.

I hope that Brown’s background gets more attention.  Like his problems with the Auditor General for using his Council staff to perform personal jobs in relation to a rates dispute with his Council.  From Lois Brown at Newsroom:

“In our experience, this type of blurring of roles is unwise and creates risk,” the auditor said.

“We encourage Mr Brown to separate his personal and official roles more carefully in future and ensure that the capacity in which he is acting is always clear to Council staff. He must take care to ensure that Council staff do not feel under any pressure to treat him and his businesses in a different way because he is the current Mayor.”

In future, if Brown had concerns about the legality of the council’s actions relating to his own interests, he should must pursue them in the same way as any other ratepayer, the Auditor-General warned.

“His role as Mayor does not create a shortcut for resolving legal or other disputes about rates. This may be frustrating to him, given his governance responsibilities and close working relationships with the relevant staff.

There was even a Serious Fraud Office investigation which fizzled out but there were critical comments made.  From the SFO press release:

The investigation found evidence that both council members and employees apparently failed to comply with internal systems and controls designed to ensure that proper processes were followed in the approval of council projects and the expenditure of public money. However, these are failures of governance and procedure and no evidence of the intention required to commit a criminal offence was found.”

The publicity cannot have helped.  Wayne Brown’s reign as Far North District Mayor ended in 2013 when he was trounced by 8,521 to 2,502 votes to current Mayor John Carter.

That he is now seen as the only viable candidate for the right after the self destruction of Leo Molloy and this weird withdraw when she will still be on the ballot paper shows how desperate the right is.

Compared to them Efeso Collins’ campaign is sparingly funded and is reliant on the good will and hard work of a number of activists.

But it will be tight.  Please make sure that your friends and your whanau in Auckland vote for Efeso.  The alternative does not bear thinking about.

 

18 comments on “The right’s last desperate throw of the dice in Auckland ”

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  1. Robert Guyton 1
    16 September 2022 at 2:19 pm

    I met and talked with Wayne Brown some years ago*

    *Shivers

    • Ad 1.1
      16 September 2022 at 6:19 pm

      Wayne Brown is up there with Stiassny for capacious asshole.

      • mike 1.1.1
        17 September 2022 at 1:41 pm

        From personal experience I'd say he's a con of the highest order.

        • Incognito 1.1.1.1
          17 September 2022 at 2:04 pm

          People love being sucked in by a con, but only if it is a good con – they hate being fooled by bad cons because it takes too much emotional labour to keep up the pretence once the holes start to become evident and larger as time goes by. Of course, there’s comfort in numbers, of other suckers who got sucked in, which kinda makes it feel better.

          • mike 1.1.1.1.1
            17 September 2022 at 6:57 pm

            Right. Should have said bad con of the highest order. Thanks for the comfort of numbers. I feel better. A bit

            • Incognito 1.1.1.1.1.1
              17 September 2022 at 7:26 pm

              No worries. I’ve been conned so many times in my life that I’ve developed a strong aversion to them, good and bad.

  2. Ad 2
    16 September 2022 at 2:56 pm

    All those volunteers who gave time and money will be slutted.

  3. Stephen D 3
    16 September 2022 at 4:18 pm

    And now Brown pulls out of the Herald debate because Simon Wilson might be mean to him.

    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/mayoral-debate-cancelled-after-candidate-withdraws-from-race/V2B3KOCEM22GAWAOKRWBDTKVFQ/

    Pretty sure Collins will front the Auckland Ratepayers Alliance (Act in drag) debate later in the week.

    • AB 3.1
      16 September 2022 at 5:02 pm

      he needs to front up [on] what he's selling or who he's going to fire to pay for the cuts that he's promising.

      Sounds right. It's difficult to get a decent return on capital these days from doing what the neoclassical economics textbooks say that firms do – innovate, produce new goods and services, etc. Quicker, easier and better returns by gobbling up formerly publicly-owned utilities and creating a private monopoly or cartel.

  4. Tiger Mountain 4
    16 September 2022 at 4:32 pm

    There is a lot of info out there on “Brownie” as he previously liked to be known on the campaign trail, if voters pick him they deserve him imo.

    • His personal business interest conflicts while FNDC Mayor
    • Travel to China and Canada to set up sister cities and mining proposals in the Far North
    • Sackings of PSA members at Council Offices in his term need investigating
    • His conduct when on the Auck. DHB–suspending Standing Orders
    • Mangonui Marina proposal, roundly rejected by community action but he tried to rejuvenate it for his business mates
    • He is called an Aucklander for the purposes of this election, but we have had to put up with the bastard for decades in the Far North. He has an apartment literally over the water at Mangonui attached to the Four Square store. He moved the footpath, disrupting pedestrian passage, for parking his surfboard carrying Jeep complete with aggressive signage.

    Brownie is a tosser and I hope a professional journalist will do some digging.

    On RNZ this week he started in on one of his fave memes–sacking individual people to solve organisational problems–this time the Board of Auckland Transport. Maybe they need to be sacked, but not on his caustic whim.

    It pretty much goes without need for comment that he will not be calling for sacking the unaccountable, undemocratic CCOs!

    • Ad 4.1
      16 September 2022 at 4:52 pm

      Auckland Transport is a CCO.

      Nothing wrong with dissolving their board and unwinding one of the worst of National's Auckland reforms.

      • Tiger Mountain 4.1.1
        16 September 2022 at 5:09 pm

        Sure, I meant generically. Brown is not likely to review or provoke legislation change re CCOs. The thing with CCOs is they are rather bullet proof thanks to the architects of the Supercity.

        • Ad 4.1.1.1
          16 September 2022 at 6:15 pm

          When first formed there was a two year limit on restructuring. Long gone.

          Goff merged two, but didn't make useful moves like:

          • Abolishing the Ports of Auckland company despite their previous Board and CE consistently screwing him over. Hey well done POA for leaving the next guy a $20m deficit …
          • Merging Council stormwater with Watercare before they were forced to by legislation
          • Bringing the large Auckland AIrport shareholding into active Council management rather than passive investment, despite it being richer and more powerful than any other entity in Auckland
          • Turning Panuku into either a proper house builder, or a direct manager of social housing. Instead they kept it as a weird catch-and-release operator
          • Requiring AT to bring all bus and ferry services into public control – instead they waiting to Labour's second term to even get the legislated option
          • Forced AT to give up its Transport Committee status to approve the RLTP
          • Accelerated the return of Vector into direct Council control despite Vector being so poor at enabling power supply that it has been taken to the High Court multiple times by the Commerce Commission

          The list could keep going, the point is Goff was a pretty weak governor, lurching from one crisis to the next, and has left his successor with far less power, fewer assets, and no money.

          • Poission 4.1.1.1.1
            16 September 2022 at 6:34 pm

            Wait to you see the bill for the city rail project (delayed till after the election of course) and who will buy the bond with our CA deficit.

            • Ad 4.1.1.1.1.1
              16 September 2022 at 7:01 pm

              I couldn't possibly comment.

              But every step a good citizen takes up Albert Street is now $1.5m and rising.

              Whistle as you strut.

    • tc 4.2
      16 September 2022 at 5:33 pm

      No digging is required, wayne's long list of governance and management issues are there for all to see.

      Apathy rules again IMO, roll the dice on the poll day as the right are noisy, well funded and as mickey says desperate.

      With molloy/beck that was a quality field they offered up gosh with Slimon on the scene aren't aklders well served going forward.

  5. Tom Hunter 5
    16 September 2022 at 6:56 pm

    Pffft… Wayne Brown was utterly useless in the Far North and his DHB role shows that he's just another trougher.

    But that doesn’t justify scaremongering lines like:

    The alternative does not bear thinking about.

    Please! If elected he'll change little or nothing since the Auckland mayor is just another voice on the Council and it appears to be the city bureaucracy that really makes the decisions. As a ratepayer I don't see a lot of difference between the days of Banks and Goff – except that they've stopped mowing the verges to save some pitiful amount of money compared to their spending on crap that hasn't improved my life at all.

    Life in Auckland has steadily got worse and I expect it will continue to do so whether Collins or Brown is elected. I see an old varsity rugby mate is running so maybe I'll throw the dart at his name.

  6. Sacha 6
    16 September 2022 at 9:27 pm

    Mayor only gets one vote. Pay attention to the Councillors seeking election.

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