‘Shut up, fool’: Auckland councillors clash over vote on historic 7.9% rates rise

Monday, 25 May 2026

Tensions have flared over whether to impose a historic rates rise on Auckland households with Mayor Wayne Brown telling one critical councillor to “shut up, fool”.

Brown maintains his proposed budget that would see the average household paying an additional $320 a year would be a “nought increase” if not for the opening of the City Rail Link.

But The Post understands that a group of dissenting councillors intend to put up an amendment at Tuesday’s vote seeking to reduce the proposed 7.9% increase.

Last week, the Auckland Ratepayers Alliance claimed that, following a billboard campaign, it understood that 12 out of 20 councillors were prepared to vote against Brown’s budget.

Read more:

• Christopher Luxon asks Auckland, why risk it? Chris Hipkins asks, why trust it?

• Wayne Brown’s Auckland budget: 7.9% rates increase, a $50m hole and CRL opening date

• ‘I don’t sign pledges’: Wayne Brown refuses to increase homelessness budget

At a tense meeting ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Brown told his councillors not to be “spooked” by the Ratepayers’ Alliance.

“Coming down a little doesn’t make the public suddenly wealthy. It’s a tokenism,” he said.

He warned them that if they weren’t prepared to vote for an increase now, they would face higher rates increases closer to the next election.

Under the council’s current Long Term Plan, rates increases would be kept at 3.5% a year for two years following the historically high 7.9% bump.

“What we are doing this year is fantastic. We are going out at nought plus a $6 billion train set,” Brown said.

But, Waitematā councillor Mike Lee challenged Brown saying he should have “walked the talk” and “pushed back” on “Government blowouts” on the price of the CRL.

Returned Brown: “Shut up, fool.”

Lee later told The Post it was “lucky” he hadn’t heard Brown’s retort at the meeting.

“Otherwise, in the mood I was in, I may have responded in a way that I’d rather regret.”

A middle class in ‘crisis’

At a budget briefing last week, Albert-Eden councillor Christine Fletcher said she was reluctantly proposing to defer depreciation funding to soften the rates rise - which is allocating a lesser amount to replace or maintain council’s assets.

“When the quarterly rates bills come in [this month] I think there will be a lot of scratching of heads among families as to how they will meet that instalment,” she said.

“There is a bit of a crisis point emerging, and maybe it's just a crisis point of the middle classes, I don’t know … We are watching people that would never once have done it, living on credit card debt.”

Deputy Mayor Desley Simpson said it was “not her first rodeo” but it was the first time she had been this 'concerned'.

“If I’m brutally honest, I sit in the camp that I would like to see some give from us, because they are hurting.”

But Franklin councillor Andy Baker said he would support the 7.9% increase.

“If people want to drop it, I’d love for them to be able to explain what exactly they will cut. Will they drop those library hours because they think its important to save 1%?”

Howick councillor Maurice Williamson said a rates rise well over inflation when “the public are struggling like stink” wasn’t acceptable.

He suggested that the vast majority of Aucklanders were motorists, and said that by putting up public transport fares by 14% the council could raise $30m and keep the rates increase at 6.9%.

He suggested this would more fairly spread the cost of fuel increases.

“I know this will be like a pork chop in a Jewish synagogue to the vast bulk of you,” he said. “[But] I’m just gobsmacked we can say to one group of people [bus users] that you can be exempt from any costs increase.”

Maungakiekie-Tāmaki councillor Josephine Bartley said she couldn’t support fare increases.

“If you want to go down to the shops it's already going to cost you $6 and that’s quite expensive for a lot of people.”

Waitematā’s Lee also pushed back strongly, saying it wasn’t “privileged A-listers” using public transport, but “price sensitive” users.

“They are not the fat cats, they are the people who are reducing their grocery spend,” he said. “Apparently they’re buying super wine biscuits instead of the chocolate ones … It’s that bad.”

A million litres of fuel a week

Auckland Council chief executive Phil Wilson told councillors they needed to “understand the reality of the situation”.

“If you decide on a rates increase below 7.9% I promise you in good faith we will front up with some tools to try and get there, but I need to tell you right now that some of them are not going to feel palatable. That is the size of it.”

He said the council was already driving optimisation, and further “rats and mice” service reductions wouldn’t save much but would result in “a whole lot of community blowback”.

“Frankly, we’ve been down that path and its ugly.”

Brown’s proposed budget includes $3.6b in investment in transport, water and community assets, a 213% debt to revenue ratio, $106m of budgeted operating savings and $67m of asset sales.

All up the council needs to find $213m in savings to mitigate unexpected cost increases which staff say would otherwise translate into a 15% rates increase.

Councillors heard that the council was facing between $25m and $50m in increased fuel costs.

“The council and its family burns nearly a million litres of diesel a week, so its very material,” said Wilson.

And Wilson said he already had his doubts as to whether the council would be able to keep to its promise of a 3.5% rates increase next year.

“It would irresponsible of me not to say that I am really worried.”

As tensions began to flare between his councillors, Brown said his budget was a “defendable” proposal at a “bloody hard time”, before abruptly closing the meeting.

“I’m going off to play my banjo now. I’ve had enough of this,” he concluded.