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In a tribute to the postal voting system, Wayne Brown is doing a lot of postal mayoring. Artwork: Tina Tiller and Jacobus Leveck
In a tribute to the postal voting system, Wayne Brown is doing a lot of postal mayoring. Artwork: Tina Tiller and Jacobus Leveck

PoliticsOctober 21, 2022

Letters from Wayne

In a tribute to the postal voting system, Wayne Brown is doing a lot of postal mayoring. Artwork: Tina Tiller and Jacobus Leveck
In a tribute to the postal voting system, Wayne Brown is doing a lot of postal mayoring. Artwork: Tina Tiller and Jacobus Leveck

Revealed: the Brown ink memos.

Already, municipal historians are calling Wayne Brown’s term leading the Auckland council “the epistolary mayoralty”. From his office on the 27th floor of the downtown Wayne Brown council building, the mayor perches at his escritoire, dipping quill in ink, pausing only to gaze out at the moving vista of a million imported used automobiles.

In missives so far released to the public, Mayor-elect Brown has shared thoughts, feelings and instructions with the acting chair of Auckland Transport, with Ports of Auckland chair Jan Dawson, with Watercare chair Margaret Devlin, and with the CEOs of mobile network operators. 

But this appears to be just the tip of the Wayneberg. A leather-bound bundle leaked to The Spinoff includes hundreds of other missives. 

We wanted to ask Mayor-elect Brown if the letters were authentic but he was unavailable for interview.

Below, a selection of those letters.

Dear Tory Whanau

I want to congratulate you on your election to the role of mayor of Wellington. Across more than 300 events during the campaign it was made very clear to me that the last thing anyone needs in a mayor is someone who thinks it’s really crack-up to run an ad in the Herald having a go at another mayor. What Aucklanders have told me, time and time again, is that they want a mayor who fixes things using letters, not a mayor who thinks they’re really, really funny when they’re not. 

Yours sincerely, Wayne Brown

Dear Phil Goff

I want to thank you for adhering to my request for mass resignations, and doing so very early. Much work lies ahead for the council family to gain the trust and confidence of Aucklanders. It is my expectation that you tell me where you put the remote.

Yours sincerely, Wayne Brown

Dear A-Plus Auckland Express Drycleaners

For the most part, A-Plus Auckland Express Drycleaners provide an important service to Aucklanders, and for that I thank you. However, during the recent mayoral campaign, for which I attended more than 600 public meetings and other events, a constant source of complaint was the provision of services, including but not limited to drycleaners, who fail to meet their own undertakings. 

Specifically, the “express” service, incorporating the four-garments-for-the-price-of-three special offer, last Thursday took a full 20 minutes longer than the undertaking of a four-hour turnaround, which really messed up my afternoon. Let me be clear that I find this situation unacceptable. My expectation is that you demonstrate to me that you understand how Aucklanders live now and how they want to live in the future, in written form within three weeks.

Yours sincerely, Wayne Brown

Dear Bill Shakespeare 

I want to thank you for your contributions to the field of literature over the years. I have seen you described as a man of letters, but really that’s my specialty. You’re more a man of plays, when you think about it, Bill, and some of them are excellent. 

As incoming mayor and fellow “bard”, my advice is to cut all ties with the organisation Creative New Zealand. It will not surprise you that in over one hundred score campaign events, the strongest and most consistent message I heard from the people of Auckland, known also as the “Wayniacs”, was that Creative New Zealand funds a lot of rubbish these days. It is my intention to demand the resignation of their board, but as matters stand your reputation is being damaged by association. Separately, I would urge you to focus on histories, rather than the other soppy stuff.

Yours sincerely, Wayne Brown

Dear Harbour City Urinal Solutions

A bit bigger and an inch higher. Can you sharpen up the focus?

Yours sincerely, Wayne Brown

Dear Elon Musk

I want to thank you for your contribution to the world of business and investment, particularly in the fields of electric vehicles and space travel. With regard, however, to your email alerting me to “A Secret Bitcoin System That Makes More Than Tesla! Legal Tax-Free Cash For Everyone” I have instructed my staff to decline the offer. 

Across more than ten thousand public meetings during the campaign, there was no clear enthusiasm for secret bitcoin systems that make more than Tesla, and under the present fiscal circumstances I consider such an investment would be imprudent. Happy to discuss further (Monday to Friday, 9am to 3pm).

Yours sincerely, Wayne Brown

Dear Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2

As I am sure you are aware, your presence in Auckland is damaging and undesirable. Simply put, you are not welcome. I was elected mayor with a clear statutory mandate to halt all deathly viruses and I do not shirk from that. Across more than three hundred thousand mayoral debates through the campaign the message was loud and clear: Covid-19 is really bad. My immediate instructions are as follows: (a) resign; (b) leave Auckland; (b) do not, whether in current or future variant form, return to Auckland.

Yours sincerely, Wayne Brown

Dear AG Sulzberger

I would like to thank you for the daily word puzzle “Wordle”, provided via the website nytimes.com. I usually enjoy it. It is with some regret I inform you there are days, however, when I do not (enjoy it). October 8, 2022 was one of those. What should have been a great day for me, and for Auckland, as it elected me mayor by the biggest mandate of all time, was blighted by my Wordle streak being halted. Ruined. The answer? VIGOR. Across ten and a half million meetings and debates through the mayoral campaign, the message was clear. Aucklanders will not accept American spellings in Wordle. My expectation is that you will focus squarely henceforth on the many words, including but not limited to WAYNE and BROWN and FIXER, that are formulated consistently across the Anglosphere.

Yours sincerely, Wayne Brown

Dear Mrs Brown

This is just to say that in regard to the plums that were in the icebox, and in accordance with the mandate given to me by Aucklanders, I have eaten them. While I understand that you may have been considering the plums as a breakfast component, my expectations are clear. I would register with you my request for forgiveness but note also that in campaign events spanning 50 continents and travelling directly into and out the other side of the sun’s core, it was made clear to me as incoming mayor that I can freely consume any plums, wherever I find them, should they satisfy the following criteria: (a) delicious; (b) so sweet; and (c) so cold. 

Yours sincerely, Wayne Brown

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Keep going!
Photos: RNZ/Supplied; Design: Tina Tiller
Photos: RNZ/Supplied; Design: Tina Tiller

OPINIONPoliticsOctober 20, 2022

Wayne Brown has found a unicorn issue that unites Auckland

Photos: RNZ/Supplied; Design: Tina Tiller
Photos: RNZ/Supplied; Design: Tina Tiller

Auckland’s deeply weird new mayor has made few friends since taking office – but moving the port is one thing the whole city seems to agree on.

In 2022 there are few issues that can pull together a divided electorate – we live in an era of intense algorithmically driven polarisation, a choose-your-own-reality which makes consensus building extremely difficult. Even within relatively aligned blocs there are deep fissures, such as the right’s inability to pass meaningful resource management act reform, or the divide between Labour and the Greens on taxation. 

Newly minted Auckland mayor Wayne Brown does not present as the man to unite us. His first days in office have been marked by an almost comical degree of hostility and rancour, from his refusal to speak to media to his cheerful pronouncement that he would work part-time hours due to his pitiful salary – not even $300,000! One council appointed chairperson resigned immediately upon hearing of his victory, the rest have been sent the kind of letters which might more normally be expected from ordinary constituents with too much time on their hands.

Yet it is Wayne Brown – yep, right-leaning, bloodyminded, pin-a-pic-of-Simon-Wilson-to-a-urinal Wayne Brown – who has already managed to alight upon an issue which has drawn hugely enthusiastic endorsement from both Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick and Tāmaki Makaurau mana whenua at Ngāti Whātua Orākei. That issue is Auckland’s port, the mighty 55 hectare colossus that sprawls across so much of our main central city access to the Waitematā that you’d be forgiven for being unaware there even was a body of water adjacent to our downtown.

Brown has written a letter to the port’s chair, Jan Dawson, asking that Bledisloe Wharf, the world’s most spectacularly located carpark, be vacated and returned to accessibility to the public as soon as possible. Swarbrick, MP for Auckland Central and neighbour to Brown on Karangahape Road, has enthusiastically endorsed the idea, telling RNZ’s Morning Report that “the mayor and I strongly agree on the need to return this land to Aucklanders”. Ngarimu Blair, Deputy Chair of Ngāti Whātua Orākei Trust has too, telling the NZ Herald “We welcome the opportunity to work directly with the Ports of Auckland and the mayor on how we can quickly unlock access to the Waitematā for all Aucklanders.”

One issue, with the three most crucial stakeholders aligned, collectively representing central government, local government and mana whenua, along with both the left and right of our politics. It doesn’t seem plausible that such an issue could exist. Yet while Brown might seem to have plucked it out of the air, this is in fact one strange issue which already has a near universal approval rating. 

Moving the port unites former PMs from both National and Labour in John Key and Helen Clark. NZ First made it a bottom line at the last election. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in 2019 that the current location is “not viable”. The Maritime union wants the port moved to Northland. It even brings together noted antagonists in Herald columnists Matthew Hooton and Simon Wilson, who agree on almost nothing else. 

Perhaps most pertinently it has overwhelming support from the people of Auckland, the land’s owners. According to a June 2019 Ministry of Transport poll conducted by Kantar, almost twice as many Aucklanders favoured a move versus the status quo. When asked specifically whether a move would be good for Auckland that ration became 4:1 in favour of the move. More than half favoured its development into either or both of an entertainment precinct and public spaces, and the most popular time frame for a move was “within 10 years”.

Truly, this is a unicorn of an issue that unites whole chapters of our society who agree on literally nothing else of any consequence. 

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And yet the port abides

So why hasn’t it happened? Because deciding to move it is easy, but where to is far more vexed. There are fierce proponents of Northport, of the Manukau Harbour, of a location near Thames too. Some want its functions split, others want the whole piece moved. The fact Ports of Auckland is nominally a business, albeit one owned by Council and which returns a risible dividend compared to other ports, is somewhat of an issue too. Most of all, whatever plan is picked, it’s going to cost a lot of money and the triumphant unveiling will be on another mayor’s watch, when many arguing about it currently are retired or in the ground.

Still, the prize glitters. As Brown pointed out to me during a pre-election interview, Sydney had a downtown port which was moved to Botany Bay in the 60s, a process which began when the 76-year-old Brown was a schoolboy. On a recent visit I walked along its waterfront, a beguiling mix of parkland, public facilities, accomodation and entertainment with that iconic Opera House – a vision of what nearly all involved agree Auckland’s might become.

The space is equivalent to 18% of the central city, an extraordinary thing to be locked away, an even greater gift to be returned to its residents and to mana whenua. That moving it is hard is not disputed, and it’s inevitable that not all will be happy with the proposed outcome. But the ludicrously broad coalition in favour of it is evidence enough that it has to move. Despite many in positions of power supporting it, nothing ever seems to happen. Maybe it needs a gnarly old shitkicker like Brown to start the process of scraping this very stubborn barnacle off the waterfront.

But wait there's more!