[Updated with further response from Mayor’s Office]
Wayne Brown is Auckland’s biggest-spending mayor with council figures showing his office spent $4.4 million in one year – more than twice the norm of his predecessor Phil Goff.
The number is no surprise, with Brown telling this journalist within weeks of his 2022 election, that he would do just that, and had a big agenda.
“I intend to make full use of the powers and resources available to me to do what the law demands,” Brown said then.
Auckland’s amalgamation legislation requires the council to make available 0.2 percent of its budget to the mayor’s office for research and independent work, but the spending of it is discretionary.
The mayoral spending pattern emerged as Auckland Council lifted average residential rates by a record 7.9 percent, and still with up to $85m of cuts and rising cost risks, to deal with.
In the last two years of Goff’s two terms, the famously frugal former Labour veteran’s office spent $1.8 and $1.9 million.
Brown was elected in 2022, with one election pledge being to end “wasteful spending”. His office spending peaked at $3.6 and $4.4 million in 2023/24 and 2024/25.
It dipped to $2.9m in the financial year just ended, where the available cap was also lower.
The mayor has spent significantly on consultants and contractors providing advice to him on major issues.
In the reform of the council-controlled organisations, $350,000 was paid in the past year to Chirnside Consulting.
Wayne Brown’s office paid an annual equivalent of $300,000 to long-time friend, campaign manager, and business associate Chris Mathews for “specialist strategic advice”.
Mathews had initially been in the office as an unpaid volunteer, and remained until the relationship ended at the start of this year.
In response to Newsroom asking for any relevant context to the mayoral office spending, Brown’s office pointed to a list of work, but without providing all of the sums spent.
An early one, soon after Brown’s election, was $185,000 getting former Police Commissioner Mike Bush to review the council’s response to the 2023 floods.
A spokesperson also pointed to trade missions the mayor has joined. One to Brazil in October 2024, reported on by Newsroom, had proceeded with a budget of $25,000, but ended up costing $43,000 for the mayor and his chief of staff.
| Legislative minimum | Budget | Actual spend | Spend against legislative minimum | |
| 2020/21 | $4,112,000 | $3,043,000 | $1,814,000 | -$2,298,000 |
| 2021/22 | $4,368,000 | $5,194,000 | $1,904,000 | -$2,464,000 |
| 2022/23 | $4,939,000 | $5,289,000 | $2,751,000 | -$2,188,000 |
| 2023/24 | $5,081,000 | $5,855,000 | $3,631,000 | -$1,450,000 |
| 2024/25 | $5,333,000 | $5,590,000 | $4,421,000 | -$912,000 |
| 2025/26 | $4,850,000 | – | $2,900,000 | -$1,950,000 |
Both Goff and Brown began their terms commissioning big reports with mixed results.
A $1m report called for by Goff was inconclusive on the question of whether a new downtown stadium was feasible. It was paid for by the council’s facilities agency.
Brown’s big early spend was linked to his call for the council-owned port activity to be moved to Northland within a decade, with the vehicle import operation to go within one year.
He failed to get political backing for that, and shifted to exploring a sale of the port’s operation – but not its land – to a private company, commissioning reports from Australian firm Flagstaff, and a review by PwC.
The operations sale plan did not win majority support in public consultation on the council’s 2024-2034 10-year budget, and there was no political consensus for it.
In the end, the port company’s new chair and chief executive, both appointed before Brown’s election, agreed Port of Auckland could pay a bigger dividend of around $1 billion over a decade.
In June 2024, the mayor’s office paid nearly $233,000 to consultants Stanton Reid to weigh up proposals lodged following Brown’s call for contenders to be Auckland’s “national stadium”.
The council opted to back Eden Park as the city’s premier stadium, rather than pursue new options.
Newsroom sought comment from Brown to explain such a sharp increase in mayoral office spending after having campaigned against wasteful spending.
No direct comment was offered but, in a statement from his office, Brown’s spokesperson described the question as “a leading question that notes a bias of ‘wasteful’ spending”.
It noted that Goff’s 2020/21 spend occurred during the Covid 19 pandemic, when staff were working from home.
Brown’s office also contended that Goff commissioned work from other units in the council, therefore not showing up on his own office accounts.
When Newsroom sought examples of this beyond the known stadium spend, Brown’s office replied “we don’t have a record of the previous mayor’s financials”.
After arguing that in Wayne Brown’s term, less spending was pushed out of the mayor’s office onto other council budgets, a spokesperson later clarified that major costs related to the port reform work were not funded by the mayor.
In an official information response in July 2024, Auckland Council said $1.7 million had been spent on external advice on the possible sale of port operations. This was work commissioned by the mayor.
The mayor’s office did pay $54,000 for analysis by Council of Trade Unions economist Craig Renney, which doubted the case for selling the port operation.
The ability to keep a timely tab on how the mayor spends ratepayers’ money has recently got more difficult, with his office declining to continue releasing monthly accounts to Newsroom.
“As explained when you met with the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, creating this information is taking staff away from other important work and having a negative impact on the work of the office,” the council’s official information unit wrote to Newsroom.
The council intends to make spending details available only quarterly, meaning some spending would be first visible up to four months after it occurred.
The mayor’s office has also declined to continue releasing monthly copies of his appointment diary detailing who Wayne Brown meets. That would also be made available only quarterly.
Newsroom has appealed those decisions to the Ombudsman, which is investigating whether it complies with the requirements of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA).
Subsequent to the publishing of the story, the mayor’s office contacted Newsroom and said it painted “an inaccurate and incomplete picture” and didn’t explain “what that money delivered for Auckland”.
“It is wrong to claim the port work resulted in “no change”, said a spokesperson, although that claim was not made in the story.
“The office’s work (on port reform) completely reset commercial expectations for Ports of Auckland and secured the vital Tripartite Agreement with the unions, turning around the port’s performance.”
The office also noted its contribution to major events funding, though it did not respond to an earlier request for the sum involved.
“Expenditure directly unlocked massive structural reforms, including the overhaul of our CCOs (absorbing Auckland Transport functions and disestablishing Eke Panuku) and establishing the Auckland Future Fund with legislative protection,” said the office.
“Wasteful equals no benefits. There have certainly been many benefits,” it said in a statement.
