Bo Burns asks Wayne Brown what a well behaved councillor looks like, as Mike Lee tells him he is running two explanations at once
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown’s decision to demote several councillors led to fiery questioning at a Governing Body meeting held yesterday.
Howick Ward councillor Bo Burns, who lost the deputy chairmanship of the Community Committee in the reshuffle announced on 3 August, asked Brown across the table to explain what he had meant by her bad behaviour.
“In our conversation you mentioned that my behaviour and my bad behaviour was a consequence of your decision, and that if I was a good councillor that you would reinstate me in some sort of role in the future,” Burns said.
“So because I haven’t been at school, primary school, for a long time, I was just wondering what constitutes being a well behaved councillor and a good councillor?”
Brown said it was “a team thing” and that people had gone up and down before.
Burns asked again, “so what exactly do I need to do to be a well behaved councillor and a good councillor?”
Brown said she had taken the word behaviour too strongly.
“You’ve chosen to make your decisions, and decisions have consequences,” he said.
Asked directly whether being a good councillor meant voting in favour of Brown’s positions, the mayor said “not necessarily”, and that it also meant raising issues in workshops rather than at the last minute.
North Shore councillor John Gillon, who lost the deputy chairmanship of the Regulatory and Safety Committee, also questioned whether the mayor’s decisions were based on how councillors voted.
“It is disappointing that the recommendation from the mayor to remove me from deputy chair of regulatory and safety seems to have been based on my voting record on matters outside of that committee, rather than merit on how I performed as deputy chair of that committee,” he said.
“No one here should be getting whipped and rewarded with chair positions. That is not good governance.”
Councillor Mike Lee told Brown he was running two explanations at once.
“There’s two narratives running here and you’re the architect of both of them,” Lee said.
“One is that you’re making these changes because of performance, but you’ve also made it clear that these people are being punished for not going along with the captain. And so you can’t really have it both ways.”
He said councillors were being punished “for voting with their conscience, for voting not the way you want, but voting the way the electorate wants”.
“You need to tolerate some dissent, Mr Mayor,” Lee said. “You’re a mayor. That’s it. You’re nothing else. You’re not a king or a prince.”
Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson defended the process, telling the meeting the choice was one of the few the mayor could make alone.
“There are very few things the mayor can do by himself without the vote of others, and choosing committees, saying who’s going to lead them, is one of them,” she said.
Simpson said the change that mattered most to her was the appointment of an independent member to the Value for Money Committee she chairs.
“That is not a councillor, not a staff member, but somebody new,” she said. “It’s a third eye.”
She also welcomed Gillon onto that committee, and he thanked her for pushing for him.
Brown told the meeting he would review the roles again before the end of the term.
