Brown responded: “They might have said stupid, but they don’t say fat.”
Councillor Christine Fletcher says she wants “maturity” brought back into Auckland Council. Photo / Sylvie Whinray
“So you called her a stupid b***h?” Bridge asked.
“No, I didn’t at all … It’s just somebody might have,” Brown responded.
“Who?” Bridge asked.
“Who’s to know,” Brown said, adding that some councillors “do all the talking and get none of the votes”.
“Yeah, but you can’t have people saying ‘stupid b-word’,” Bridge said.
Brown responded: “Oh mate, I don’t, never said that. But we said, ‘For f’s sake, get on with it’.”
“And she talks for ages. And nobody listens. And nobody votes with them.”
Video surfaced last week of Fletcher accusing Brown of swearing at her during a meeting.
Fletcher suggested Brown was trying to intimidate her when he allegedly said: “For f***’s sake, just get on with it.”
The clip showed part of a policy, planning and development committee meeting on March 10, where councillors were discussing hotly debated density proposals.
Fletcher took issue with another councillor attempting to interrupt her, before addressing Brown for a comment she believed the mayor made off-mic.
“Well, for f***’s sake, get on with it,” Fletcher said, parroting Mayor Brown’s alleged comment.
“It might be okay for you to say Mr Mayor, but this is actually quite an important issue for Aucklanders, and they’re wanting to know.
“It’s not language that I use a lot, as some of you who’ve known me a while might know that I don’t use that language.
“And if it’s designed to intimidate me, you’ve absolutely missed the mark.”
This morning, Bridge suggested to Brown there had been a string of recent controversies involving the mayor.
He cited the two incidents of colourful language, mentioned above. He also cited an incident last month in which Brown claimed a drunken man “took a swing” at him while attending a fundraising dinner for National’s Auckland Central candidate.
And he referenced a report yesterday on Stuff that Brown had allegedly threatened the Ponsonby News editor for publishing a column by Waitematā and Gulf Ward councillor Mike Lee.
“If you are just going to publish Mike Lee bagging me then your paper will die,” Brown told the paper’s editor Martin Leach in a July 3 email.
Mayor Wayne Brown said his door was always open to councillor Christine Fletcher. Photo / Cameron Pitney
Responding this morning, Brown told Bridge to “get on with the important things in life. You’ve been trivialising the world”.
Asked whether Brown had in fact taken a swing at the man during the candidate fundraiser, Brown said he hadn’t.
“No, someone took a swing at me. I don’t take a swing at people. I walk away.
“Nothing happened. You’ll be doing stories about me soon on a pedestrian crossing.”
Asked about the Ponsonby News email, Brown said Leach had earlier tried to sell him the paper.
Brown questioned Leach’s “mock rage” this week over the email – citing another email sent by Leach on July 16 (which the Herald has viewed) in which Leach said he looked forward to receiving Brown’s next column for Ponsonby News.
“He tried to sell me his paper … then he allows a page of personal abuse to be published,” Brown said this morning.
“I said, ‘That’s going to kill your paper, mate. People don’t want to read that sort of stuff.”
Brown said that two weeks later, Leach showed “mock rage” despite earlier asking the mayor to “write in his paper”.
“No wonder I didn’t buy it,” Brown said.
Responding this morning, Leach told the Herald he welcomed a diversity of views and hoped Brown would continue contributing to the paper.
“Occasionally you do fall out with people but that’s not to say I don’t want him writing in my paper anymore. I do. I value his take on things.”
Leach said he didn’t always agree with everything contributors wrote, “but I believe in freedom of speech so I let people have their say”.
He said Brown’s July 3 email had sat in his inbox for some time while Leach decided how to respond.
“I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. To be honest, I completely forgot about it.”
He eventually sent a screenshot of Brown’s email to Lee, who posted it on his Facebook page. The matter then became public.
Lane Nichols is Auckland Desk Editor and a senior journalist for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.