One is still not a hugger, the other has had to put wild parties behind her. A look at how the mayors of Auckland and Wellington have fared over the last two years
Two years into their mayoral terms, the civic leaders of Wellington and Auckland have pushed through controversy, opposition and calls for their resignations Photo: Marika Khabazi Samuel Rillstone
When Wayne Brown started his term as Auckland mayor, he was lambasted for his poor communication, lack of engagement with the media and inability to get consensus around the council table.
While in the capital - Tory Whanau's ascension to the mayoralty was heralded as a huge step forward - she was the first wāhine Māori mayor and talked of a progressive future.
It's nearly two years into their three year terms and the narrative has somewhat changed - Brown has secured the lowest rates increase of any metropolitan council across the country, while Whanau's left-leaning colleagues have accused her of selling out her progressive stance.
On today's episode of The Detail, two New Zealand Herald reporters, Simon Wilson in Auckland and Georgina Campbell in Wellington, analyse how their mayors have performed.
Brown notoriously criticised Wilson for being a "prick" just before he became mayor.
"I'd like to think that my relationship was straightforward with Wayne and his was complicated with me," says Wilson.
Brown's performance around the Auckland floods in January 2023 has been widely criticised, and some called for him to resign.
"He has, from that point, applied himself a lot more diligently to the task," Wilson says.
Despite a controversial annual plan process in 2023, Wilson believes Brown has done a better job this year, with the 10 year long-term plan.
"He had developed stronger relations with councillors by that stage, he had worked out who was going to support him and who wasn't, who was likely to," Wilson says.
"He had a probably more functional mayor's office by that stage and that meant that the process of establishing the long-term-plan budget was smoother. He didn't get everything he wanted, but he got a much stronger sense of 'we the council are committed to this'.
"He has kept his rates increases under 10 per cent, which is an enormous achievement in the country at the moment."
However, Wilson believes Brown struggles with emotional intelligence.
"He cannot help himself - he sits in council meetings and quietly manages to say things about other councillors that - if they were sensitive - they'd feel highly abused about."
He also questions his relationship with government ministers, such as Minister for Auckland, Local Government and Transport, Simeon Brown.
"You can boil Wayne Brown's situation down to one thing - he has to have a good working relationship with the government.... in order to get the progress that he thinks should happen. His job is to persuade the government of that. If he wants to do that, he's going to need considerably more empathy skills, considerably more negotiation skills than he's shown us so far.
"For all intents and purposes, most of what he wants to do are good things, and that wasn't clear before the election, but it's more or less clear now, but his ability to actually do them is stymied by his inability to build working relationships with people."
In the capital, Campbell says Whanau's election in 2022 was a "landslide" - but she's had a difficult term.
Many of her plans to revitalise the city have been dismantled due to the change in government. Furthermore, she's struggled with things she didn't campaign on - the Reading Cinema complex controversy and the sale of the council's shares in Wellington airport.
Much of this goes against her Green Party background and left-bloc support.
"You think about the airport sale - Labour and the Greens - they're not keen on asset sales," Campbell says.
"There's also been a lot of cuts that have been made in the budget. I think it's interesting in terms of how the cuts build in to this narrative of a mayor who campaigned on being progressive and transformational and is now selling assets and making cuts.''
Whanau has also had personal struggles - dealing with alcoholism, then an unexpected ADHD and autism diagnosis.
"Some people questioned whether she was up to the job... but I think she sees this diagnosis as quite positive for her, she feels that a lot of things have actually fallen into place as to why she thinks a certain way."
Campbell also talks about some of Whanau's successes - such as her crisis communication during the Loafers Lodge fire.
"She was there on the scene...she was visibly emotional.... she showed very good leadership that day."
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