The 3am mayor

Jonathan Marshall in the SST reports:

Revelations of after-dark communications with Key come as Wood releases on the internet the abusive rants Williams left on his answer phone in October.

Blogger Cameron Slater – who has feuded with Williams in the past – is from today hosting the recordings on behalf of Wood on his website whaleoil.co.nz.

Cameron has made a nice video including the phone recordings. They reveal a highly insecure Mayor who feels the need to leave abusive and threatening messages on the answerphone of his predecessor.

In investigating the messages to George Wood, the SST found even John Key receives the late night missives:

An exasperated John Key has confirmed that Williams, mayor of Auckland’s North Shore City, has on several occasions sent “aggressive” and “obnoxious” texts as late as 3.30am.

Williams has gained a reputation for firing off intemperate emails, text messages and voicemail to adversaries and colleagues until late into the evening.

In October, Williams emailed his mayoral predecessor George Wood at 11.34pm on a Saturday, describing Wood as a “buffoon” and a “disgruntled, failed has-been”. He also left abusive messages on Wood’s voicemail.

Key told the Sunday Star-Times that he had not replied to any of Williams’ messages. He said they had arrived at “anything up to half past three in the morning. It’s certainly nocturnal.

“I never reply to them , they’re never worthy of a reply. The messages were in an aggressive tone… I’m not going to respond to obnoxious messages at this time of the morning.”

Cameron has done well with this front page scoop for the Star-Times, with the recipients of the calls knowing where best to go to get them publicised. I expect he will end up becoming the most visited blog at some stage – even if he does it from D Block 🙂