MEDIA RELEASE

16thDecember 2013

[statement by David Thornton]

Mayor apologising to councillors changes nothing.

An apology by the mayor to the twenty elected councillors does nothing to respond to those ratepayers and residents of Auckland who no longer have any respect for the Mayor and his office.

Most of the elected councillors acknowledge that the Mayor has breached the councils compulsory Code of Conduct on multiple occasions during his first term of office.

The Code of Conduct is in place to ensure elected members act in a way which protects the status of both the members themselves and the city council itself.

The cumulative effect of all those breaches has been to arouse widespread calls from among the Auckland public for the Mayor’s resignation.

The Mayor cannot be removed from office for his offences, and he has indicated several times that he will not resign.

The councillor must therefore pass a motion censuring the Mayor for the cumulative effect of his multiple breaches of the principles on which the Code of Conduct is based, particularly honesty and integrity.

The censure motion, once approved, must be followed up by steps to restore confidence in the council by the Auckland community.

The community’s lack of respect for Mayor Brown leaves a major gap in the important area of communication between the Mayor and the community.

The councillors must demand that the Mayor surrenders his powers of appointment, and the direction of the Mayoral Office, to a panel of senior councillors who will be the Council’s official representatives in communication with the public.

This process would remove Mayor Brown as a source of disrespect and low esteem from the public arena, and would encourage the Councillors to concentrate on the good governance of the city.

ends

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