Wayne Brown’s $617k election war chest: who bankrolled councillors’ campaigns?
Friday, 12 December 2025
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown’s historic election win in October was funded by some of the supercity’s biggest developers and investors, The Post can reveal.
Campaign donation declarations released by Auckland’s electoral officer show Brown raised a whopping $616,728 war chest from his donors.
Notable names on the list include John Hynds of Hynds Group, Damien Grant’s Waterstone Insolvency, Matthew Horncastle of Williams Corporation, Marc Ellis, Oyster Capital, Bayleys Real Estate and hotelier Nigel McKenna.
Property investors Tramco Group gave Brown $50,000 while Peninsula Capital and CP Group each gave $25,000. Stonewood Group, owned by John and Michael Chow, donated $20,000.
Precinct Properties which is involved with Auckland Council in redeveloping the Downtown car park site on Lower Hobson Street also donated $10,000.
Retailer Golf Warehouse, which offered to redevelop the council-owned A.F. Thomas Park into a new nine-hole course, chipped in $20,000 to Brown’s campaign.
In addition to donations, candidates are also required to declare their campaign expenses with Brown having catalogued a spend of $323,872.
That included $105,463 on media and billboard advertising as well as a $18,400 event at the Park Hyatt.
Brown also gave a $4568 donation to fellow Fix Auckland candidate Victoria Short who successfully ousted Wayne Walker for a seat in the Albany ward - earning her the nickname ‘Albanian killer’ from Brown. All up she spent spent $8178 on her campaign.
A $1793 donation to Manukau’s Vicky Hau, who also ran in Brown’s ticket, is marked in the declaration as an “in-kind donation” from “Wayne Brown ℅ Office of the Mayor”.
Mayoral rival Kerrin Leoni received $83,111 in donations with notable donors including Labour Party stalwarts Greg Presland ($7576), Judith Tizard ($5000) and former mayor Phil Goff ($1500).
Manurewa-Papakura councillor Daniel Newman received $24,000 in donations, from what appears to be mainly local businesses.
A number of people made regular donations to his Action Team ticket described in the returns as a “tithe”.
Albert-Eden councillor Julie Fairey had just one declared donation of $2000, but spent $22,367 on her campaign, including $125 to the Waikowhai Scout Group for delivering campaign material.
Her running mate Jon Turner’s return shows a $17,417 donation from the City Vision ticket. Despite that funding boost he was unable to unseat Community and Residents’ Christine Fletcher in the ward.
The majority of successful councillors did not declare any donations. As long as donations are made in less than $300 increments and do not cumulatively exceed $1500, they do not legally have to be declared.
As Maungakiekie-Tāmaki’s Josephine Bartley declared on her return: “I did not receive any donations over $1500 from the same donor”. She spent $4320 on her campaign.
North Shore’s John Gillon also declared his donations were “under threshold”, but spent $16,987 including $4882 on printing 30,000 copies of his own newspaper
Richard Hills declared a single $5000 donation and spent $14,752. Waitakere’s Shane Henderson and Ken Turner spent $11,912 and $34,803 respectively. Whau councillor Sarah Paterson-Hamlin spent $11,693.
Waitemata’s Mike Lee spent $17,220, while City Vision’s Patrick Reynolds, who unsuccessfully ran against Lee, received $20,272 from the left-leaning ticket and spent double that on his campaign.
Greg Sayers and Desley Simpson declared no donations and practically no expenses having both won their seats unopposed.
Simpson still had to pay $575 for her “half share of hoardings” for Fix Auckland.
The ACT party also bankrolled candidates in local elections for the first time, with North Shore candidate Helen Roza given $9147 toward her unsuccessful $26,295 campaign.