An elderly man with glasses stands before a lake at sunset, flanked by two swallows. In the distance, a domed building is on fire. Trees line the lakeshore under an orange sky.
Wayne Brown is trying to ignore the stuff that’s annoying him until the election. (Image: Tina Tiller)

Politicsabout 8 hours ago

Wayne Brown has given up on the government

Senior writer
An elderly man with glasses stands before a lake at sunset, flanked by two swallows. In the distance, a domed building is on fire. Trees line the lakeshore under an orange sky.
Wayne Brown is trying to ignore the stuff that’s annoying him until the election. (Image: Tina Tiller)

‘This is a slogan government. Roads of National party significance, city deals, localism. It’s all bollocks.’

The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr started inserting the serenity prayer into his sermons in the early 1930s. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference,” it goes. In the decades since, it’s been adopted as a mantra by Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, various Christian denominations and now Auckland mayor Wayne Brown, who is trying to figure out a way to deal with what he sees as the total bullshit he keeps being served by the government.

A version of it at least. “I can’t tell whether it’s the Auckland deal coming apart or the government coming apart, but there’s no sense getting too fussed about it because there’ll be a change of some sort later in the year,” Brown says, serenely, to open his interview with The Spinoff. We’re here to talk about National backing away from its commitment to consider a bed tax, despite agreeing to do so just four months ago when it announced its Auckland deal.

Brown wants the tax, which is actually a levy on people staying in hotels, to fund major events. He’s “deeply disappointed” at the government putting the kibosh on it, saying it raises serious questions about its commitment to the city deals it once touted and especially its promise to talk to Auckland before doing anything affecting the city. As if to illustrate the point, the government officially confirms that it’s going to implement a rates cap on councils while he’s talking. He hasn’t been told the announcement is coming and learns about it via me reading out a text from The Spinoff’s editor at large Toby Manhire. “I did not hear about this from an official. I heard about it from you,” he says.

In the past, Brown might have raged. Called David Seymour a few names. Maybe mouthed off about what he has called, in earlier interviews with The Spinoff, the “Christian Taliban” atop the National party. But now the mayor is strangely philosophical. Almost even zen. The upcoming election seems to be fostering the new placid lake of calm inside his spirit. He doesn’t need to fight the government and its policy decisions when voters might do the work for him in a few months. “I’m not going out on a war path. I’m going to watch them self-destruct or not,” he says. 

An older man with flames for eyes stands before a white brick wall. Speech bubbles with symbols and censored swearing surround him. Orange flames accent the scene.
Wayne Brown in an earlier era. (Image: The Spinoff)

Even his regular antagonists can’t get their usual rise out of him. After he sent out his statement expressing disappointment in the government’s bed tax move on the weekend, Brown says the Taxpayers’ Union boss Jordan Williams sent him a text telling him not to be such a sore loser. His response was defiant but less expletive-laden than it might once have been. “I sent back, ‘I’m actually a winner. I won by over 100,000 votes’. Then I said ‘we’ll see who the losers are later this year’.” 

Headline reads: “Mayor Wayne Brown to Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance: ‘F*** off.’” Below is a byline with a headshot of Simon Wilson, labeled as Senior Writer, NZ Herald, dated 2 Oct, 2025.
Wayne Brown has sparred with the Taxpayers’ Union and its affiliates.

That’s not to say the mayor is a happy chappy. He readily acknowledges the government’s self-professed commitment to localism is a sham. “This is a slogan government. Roads of National party significance, city deals, localism. It’s all bollocks,” he says. He believes the parties that once, with some justification, accused Labour of making big promises and failing to follow through on them are now doing the same with many of their own pronouncements. 

But he seems to have given up on trying to cajole, strongarm and insult his way into getting his way, at least for now. “The Auckland deal was their idea, not mine. If it falls by the wayside, it’s another thing of theirs that didn’t work. So I just let it die on the vine. They might fertilise it. It might come to life. But that’s up to them,” he says. “Only one side is honouring it right now.”

As Brown sees it, the upside to the regular bouts of flip-flopping is that another one might always be around the corner. “If you’ve done one U-turn, there’s no reason why you can’t do another,” he says. The next screeching U-ee might come in a couple of months, when the votes are counted and a new permutation of parliament is unveiled. For now, Brown is focusing on the things he can change. He’s trying his best to accept the growing list of things he cannot. He’s hoping on November 7, the New Zealand electorate will exercise their infinite wisdom and give him the parliamentary makeup he needs to tell the government to start doing things differently.

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