Mayor Brown's texts to minister reveal AT contempt, reform lobbying

The opening date for the $5.5 billion project remains unknown.

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown told Transport Minister Chris Bishop the public "loathed" the council's agency Auckland Transport and it was continuing to "build dumb s***", text messages released to 1News show.

The texts, sent to Bishop over several months last year, were fired off as Brown lobbied the Government to strip the council-controlled agency of most of its powers.

While the mayor's frosty relationship with AT was not new, the texts lay bare just how blunt Brown was in private texts and how directly he pressed the minister to act on it.

In one message sent on May 21, 2025, Brown told Bishop the council had "a good relationship with NZTA but not AT so much", adding that AT's "current public support is well under 30% and the public loathe them and I can see why".

Wayne Brown watches on as Chris Bishop speaks to the media.

Weeks later, on June 11, 2025, the mayor wrote: "I spoke to a big audience at a Chamber of Commerce meeting and they all hate AT." On June 25, he told the minister: "I didn't go thru all this to have AT continue to build dumb s**t."

That text came as the pair worked through which functions the agency would keep.

When Bishop set out what his reform bill would leave AT, Brown pushed back: "Capital program delivery and maintenance and renewals is why the public hate them."

He told the minister to "leave them with public transport and anything else we delegate to them", adding that it was within Bishop's delegation to change the draft legislation "to meet what was always intended".

In a September text, Brown described a letter from AT as "moaning" and "interfering".

The mayor got his way as Parliament passed legislation in April this year stripping AT of its planning and roading functions and handing them back to the council.

The agency was now being wound down into a much smaller organisation, focused solely on running public transport, with more than 1350 staff set to shift to the council.

Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown pictured in 2023. File photo.

Asked by 1News whether she was worried to hear the mayor speaking so disparagingly about AT, interim chief executive Stacey van der Putten – who is overseeing the transition – said: "The mayor thinks highly of public transport and its benefit to Auckland."

Pressed on AT itself, she said: "The mayor has his own opinions, yeah, but that's not for me to comment on."

Bishop told 1News the mayor's views were hardly a secret.

"The mayor's views about Auckland Transport are publicly available, and you've now made them slightly more public, but it's not like he's saying anything there that he hasn't said publicly for many years," he said.

The texts also touched on the CRL. A day after Brown's re-election, Bishop texted the mayor, suggesting they get together and "sort this CRL s**t out".

Asked about that message, Bishop said it "could be one of any number of different things about the CRL", adding: "It's been a frustrating project."

A train manager on the platform of Karanga-a-Hape station.

The much-delayed $5.5 billion project held a dress rehearsal at the new Karanga-a-Hape Station this week, but an opening date has still not been announced.

Under the reforms, one of the slimmed-down agency's core jobs will be making the most of the City Rail Link once it finally opens.

Harbour crossing lobbying

The texts also show Brown lobbying the minister over a planned second Waitematā Harbour crossing.

In a March 14, 2025, message, the mayor urged Bishop: "Please don't move further on harbour crossing without Auckland Council input on what and where", adding that he believed geotechnical work was being done "in the wrong area".

Brown returned to the issue repeatedly through the year, at one point sending Bishop a 1965 Auckland highway network plan and pushing his own preferred route across Meola Reef, that he said, "already goes halfway across the harbour".

By November, the mayor said he had received his first briefing on the crossing and told Bishop, "you also need to hear some of this".

Beyond the transport wrangling, the texts reveal a rapport between the two, peppered with sports banter and mentions of finding time to have beers.

Auckland Minister Simeon Brown, left, Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, and Transport Minister Chris Bishop.

Over the months, Brown offered Bishop seats to an Auckland FC semifinal and the ASB Classic tennis men's final and ribbed him over rugby results.

After Brown's re-election in October, Bishop messaged: "Well done mr mayor."

By March this year, Bishop texted Brown about what he called an "exceptionally unfair" NZ Herald story, which suggested the pair were at odds over housing intensification, and the minister proposed they "get a beer in Auckland and invite the Spinoff".

Brown replied, "voters need reminding that we get on".