February 23, 2025 9:35am by David Farrar

Brown well placed to be re-elected

Stuff reports:

Wayne Brown says he’s standing for Auckland mayor again to continue the “real progress” he’s made over the past three years.

This isn’t based on any polling, but I think Wayne Brown is well placed to be re-elected. The reasons are:

  • The last rates increase was only 7%, while elsewhere many rates increases were close to 20%
  • He has shown an ability to work with Councillors across the political spectrum
  • He has avoided the trap of automatically defending everything the Council does, regardless of the facts. In fact he will put the boot into the Council when he thinks it is justified (such as paying $8,000 per wooden step to the beach).
  • He has managed to get both Council and central Government support for CCO reform

It will be interesting to see if Labour/Greens/City Vision put up a candidate, or if C&R do. Or if both groups decide just to focus on ward seats.