The father and son were going to have a drink from the dedicated beer fridge in the mayoral office and admire the stunning birds-eye panorama of the Hauraki Gulf and downtown Auckland.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown.
At 4.06pm, the then chief executive Jim Stabback texted Brown from within the building to say Auckland Emergency Management was supporting Fire and Emergency and response agencies regarding “some flooding in Swanson and Ranui”.
He added that the “weather is expected to abate”.
It did not, and there was little time for Brown’s small team to have a beer, the Herald reported last year.
Brown told Newsroom yesterday that some drinks had been consumed in his office before the emergency became clear.
“Early in the evening, before the emergency response, was activated, a very small group of staff were socialising over drinks in the office. As soon as staff were aware of the unfolding event, there wasn’t further consumption of alcohol.
“By the time the director of governance returned, all those present in the office were drinking non-alcoholic beverages,” Brown said.
The floods caused widespread damage across Auckland. Photo / Dean Purcell.
The Herald has asked Brown what time mayoral staff stopped consuming alcohol that night and has also sought comment from Wilson.
The draft response said: “We understand that … the Director of Governance [Phil Wilson in his role at the time] physically went and checked in with the mayor’s office around 4.15pm that afternoon, at which time the mayor and some staff were having Friday drinks.”
Wilson left and was offsite for a while, remaining in contact by text and phone, and returned to the mayoral office between 7.45pm and 8pm.
“When he joined the mayoral office for the second time, the mayor and staff were still at drinks. [Wilson] stayed in the mayoral office until approximately 1.30am,” the document said.
Wilson told Newsroom he visited the mayor’s office twice, as the response said, and might have had a drink – likely non-alcoholic – the first time.
Bush’s damning review found a “system failure” of leadership in the first 12 hours of the response, in which “much of the damage was done” before Auckland Council or Brown had taken any action.
Four people lost their lives during the record-breaking downpour in Auckland beginning on the afternoon of January 27.
Brown was widely criticised for the slowness of his public response to the downpour and the eventual decision to place the Auckland region in a state of emergency after 10pm, when flooding was already widespread across the city.
Former police commissioner Mike Bush at the press conference for the Auckland flood review.
The council’s emergency management system was unprepared, and there was a communication failure from senior leadership during “critical early stages” and an emergency management team that “appeared to lack the command, crisis, and leadership skills to cope with the event”, the Bush report said.
The council’s draft response strongly defended staff, challenged some of Bush’s preliminary findings, and said council staff were not given full access to the draft Bush report.
It said:
The mayor declined further induction on emergency procedures, believing he was sufficiently informed.The chief executive, Jim Stabback, was not physically present but was available by phone.Wilson, director of governance, was deemed the appropriate support figure for the mayor during the crisis.
Wilson told Newsroom he had been asked to review between the draft and final response any factual statements relating to his experience, but there had been no issue of downplaying the “drinks” comments.
He assumed Bush had not mentioned the office drinks in his report, as he did not consider it relevant to the events of the evening.
Wilson said: “Neither the Mayor nor any of his staff were intoxicated at any time during the evening.”
The emergence of the internal council draft response comes weeks out from the mayoral and council elections. Voting papers have gone out this week ahead of the postal elections closing on October 11.
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