Two words. Much to unpack.
For weeks, the Taxpayers’ Union has been ramping up pressure on Auckland mayor Wayne Brown to sign its ratepayer pledge, which asks candidates to commit to financial transparency and raising rates within the rate of inflation. It’s pulled out all the stops, telling supporters to message the mayor en masse on social media and via its email tool. Updates from the union’s local government campaigns manager, Sam Warren, have taken an increasingly desperate tone. “I can’t believe the mayor still hasn’t signed the ratepayer protection pledge!” begins one from September 29.
Despite the bombardment – officially in the name of the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance, a Taxpayers’ Union subsidiary – the mayor has remained silent. He may have been considering his response. After all, political speech can be high-stakes. There’s a reason MPs go into media interviews equipped with a list of pre-packaged lines to return to irrespective of the question they’re actually asked. One misplaced word or phrase, and you could find yourself beleaguered, embattled, or even former. It’s important to get things right, even if it means a few weeks’ delay.
But political speech can also be galvanising, winning over supporters or cementing a speaker’s place in the history books. Who could forget JFK’s effort to scab off his citizens – “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” – or Abraham Lincoln getting extremely specific with how long ago a new nation was brought forth in the Gettysburg address.
Brown has also issued some memorable lines. In 2023, he referred to the noble men and women of the media as “drongos”. He once sent the chief executive of AT a text reading “WTF is this? Dugan St west, Wayne”.
Most notably, he’s used the phrase “Horowhenua, wherever that is”, in almost every public appearance for several years now. On the face of it, the meaning is clear: Brown doesn’t know where Horowhenua is. But does anyone really know where Horowhenua is? How sure can we be that we exist, that anything exists, that we’re not merely brains in a vat and Horowhenua a synapse being lit up by a weird guy with an electrode.
In early October, Brown finally settled on his response to the Taxpayers’ Union.
The response is short, but powerful. “Fuck” can be a reference to sexual intercourse, but in this case, when combined with the word “off”, it likely means the Taxpayers’ Union and its members should immediately desist in spamming Brown’s inbox with emails bearing subject lines like “RE: is Wayne Brown planning a rates blow-out”, particularly given Brown delivered one of the lowest rates increases in the country for the 2025/26 year, at an average of 5.8% across the city.
In the end, Brown’s message, while brief, is relatively self-explanatory. He would like the Taxpayers’ Union to fuck off, go away, or PO. It appears he sent that request from his iPhone.
