{"id":537745,"date":"2026-07-22T00:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/537745\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T00:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:41:09","slug":"auckland-mayor-wayne-brown-denies-calling-christine-fletcher-fat-b-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/537745\/","title":{"rendered":"Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown denies calling Christine Fletcher \u2018fat b-word\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brown responded: \u201cThey might have said stupid, but they don\u2019t say fat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CouncillorCouncillor Christine Fletcher says she wants “maturity” brought back into Auckland Council. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray <\/p>\n

\u201cSo you called her a stupid b***h?\u201d Bridge asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I didn\u2019t at all … It\u2019s just somebody might have,\u201d Brown responded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho?\u201d Bridge asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s to know,\u201d Brown said, adding that some councillors \u201cdo all the talking and get none of the votes\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but you can\u2019t have people saying \u2018stupid b-word\u2019,\u201d Bridge said. <\/p>\n

Brown responded: \u201cOh mate, I don\u2019t, never said that. But we said, \u2018For f\u2019s sake, get on with it\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd she talks for ages. And nobody listens. And nobody votes with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video surfaced last week<\/a> of Fletcher accusing Brown of swearing at her during a meeting. <\/p>\n

Fletcher suggested Brown was trying to intimidate her when he allegedly said: \u201cFor f***\u2019s sake, just get on with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The clip showed part of a policy, planning and development committee meeting on March 10, where councillors were discussing hotly debated density proposals. <\/p>\n

Fletcher took issue with another councillor attempting to interrupt her, before addressing Brown for a comment she believed the mayor made off-mic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, for f***\u2019s sake, get on with it,\u201d Fletcher said, parroting Mayor Brown\u2019s alleged comment. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt might be okay for you to say Mr Mayor, but this is actually quite an important issue for Aucklanders, and they\u2019re wanting to know.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not language that I use a lot, as some of you who\u2019ve known me a while might know that I don\u2019t use that language. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if it\u2019s designed to intimidate me, you\u2019ve absolutely missed the mark.\u201d<\/p>\n

This morning, Bridge suggested to Brown there had been a string of recent controversies involving the mayor.<\/p>\n

He cited the two incidents of colourful language, mentioned above. He also cited an incident last month in which Brown claimed a drunken man \u201ctook a swing\u201d at him<\/a> while attending a fundraising dinner for National\u2019s Auckland Central candidate.<\/p>\n

And he referenced a report yesterday on Stuff that Brown had allegedly threatened the Ponsonby News editor for publishing a column by Waitemat\u0101 and Gulf Ward councillor Mike Lee.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are just going to publish Mike Lee bagging me then your paper will die,\u201d Brown told the paper\u2019s editor Martin Leach in a July 3 email.<\/p>\n

\"MayorMayor Wayne Brown said his door was always open to councillor Christine Fletcher. Photo \/ Cameron Pitney<\/p>\n

Responding this morning, Brown told Bridge to \u201cget on with the important things in life. You\u2019ve been trivialising the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked whether Brown had in fact taken a swing at the man during the candidate fundraiser, Brown said he hadn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, someone took a swing at me. I don\u2019t take a swing at people. I walk away.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing happened. You\u2019ll be doing stories about me soon on a pedestrian crossing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the Ponsonby News email, Brown said Leach had earlier tried to sell him the paper. <\/p>\n

Brown questioned Leach\u2019s \u201cmock rage\u201d 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\u2019s next column for Ponsonby News.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe tried to sell me his paper … then he allows a page of personal abuse to be published,\u201d Brown said this morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018That\u2019s going to kill your paper, mate. People don\u2019t want to read that sort of stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown said that two weeks later, Leach showed \u201cmock rage\u201d despite earlier asking the mayor to \u201cwrite in his paper\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo wonder I didn\u2019t buy it,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

Responding this morning, Leach told the Herald he welcomed a diversity of views and hoped Brown would continue contributing to the paper. <\/p>\n

\u201cOccasionally you do fall out with people but that\u2019s not to say I don\u2019t want him writing in my paper anymore. I do. I value his take on things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leach said he didn\u2019t always agree with everything contributors wrote, \u201cbut I believe in freedom of speech so I let people have their say\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said Brown\u2019s July 3 email had sat in his inbox for some time while Leach decided how to respond. <\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t sure what I was going to do. To be honest, I completely forgot about it.\u201d <\/p>\n

He eventually sent a screenshot of Brown\u2019s email to Lee, who posted it on his Facebook page. The matter then became public. <\/p>\n

Lane Nichols is Auckland Desk Editor and a senior journalist for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years\u2019 experience in the industry.<\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brown responded: \u201cThey might have said stupid, but they don\u2019t say fat.\u201d Councillor Christine Fletcher says she wants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16489,9526,51,264828,6256,264827,1559,5842,82106,56154,15159,28428,31442,36601,3930,305,10934,111,43,139,69,4056,11669,33494,3542],"class_list":["post-537745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-admits","tag-another","tag-auckland","tag-bh","tag-brown","tag-bword","tag-called","tag-calling","tag-christine","tag-colleagues","tag-denied","tag-denies","tag-fat","tag-fing","tag-fletcher","tag-have","tag-mayor","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-person","tag-stupid","tag-unidentified","tag-wayne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}