Auckland Council’s executive and official information teams say they “expect” access to Mayor Wayne Brown’s second personal cellphone, which was used for corresponding in an official capacity during the city’s record-breaking fatal floods.
The mayor’s use of a private number, in addition to a council-assigned phone, has delayed the full release of his phone records from the January 27 downpour, which are subject to official information requests.
A call log and texts Mayor Brown made across the 48-hour period of January 27 and 28 on his official council phone have been obtained by the Weekend Herald via a request under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act [LGOIMA].
This log of Brown’s official council mobile phone registers eight calls and 21 texts during a 48-hour period in which the city was placed in a state of emergency, four people died and the Prime Minister flew up from Wellington to do a joint press conference with Brown.
Auckland Council Governance Director Phil Wilson told the Herald they are in the process of gaining access to Brown’s personal phone number, which he was using prior to being elected as Auckland’s mayor.
“This was a partial response to your LGOIMA correspondence request and we still expect to collate further phone log information that is within scope, including from the Mayor’s other phone,” Wilson said.
Wilson said privately owned devices can be used by elected officials but they are subject to LGOIMA on request as part of the Auckland Council Governance Manual.
“Elected members are not required to use a council-issued mobile phone and may supply their own devices if they are compatible with the council’s systems and standards,” Wilson said.
“This is outlined in S3.2.12 of the Auckland Council Governance Manual. The policies in the manual also state that privately-owned devices may still be subject to LGOIMA, therefore there is an expectation that if a personal device is being used it will be considered as part of a LGOIMA response.”
The Mayor’s office did not respond to the Herald’s questions, but a spokesperson said: “We expect further detail will be provided in the findings of the Independent Review led by former Police Commissioner Mike Bush”.
According to the released call log, between 4.59pm and 6.36pm on January 27, Brown did not make any outgoing calls or text messages. Yet it is possible he received other incoming calls on his official council phone, which are not listed in the LGOIMA.
This time period would have been at the height of Auckland’s downpour when Fire and Emergency NZ announced at 5.07pm that: “Fire crews are responding to over 400 emergency calls in Auckland due to the weather… Every fire truck in Auckland is responding to the priority calls.”
The correspondence from Brown’s separate personal phone is, at this stage, publicly unknown.
Brown has also stated he was at his desk in Auckland Council’s Albert Street headquarters from 4pm on the day the city received the most amount of rain in a 24-hour period on record.
The Herald is aware of correspondence with senior figures inside and outside of Auckland Council that Brown was texting and calling on a separate mobile number on the evening of January 27.
The Herald has evidence of Brown’s correspondence with a source discussing the decision to move the Auckland region into a state of emergency on his private number separate from the official call log provided via LOGIMA.
One Auckland Councillor told the Herald that at the beginning of every new local election cycle “it’s something drummed into us” that when you’re “conducting official council business” to use a council-assigned device.
“We all get the same briefings - or we’re all invited to the same briefings - and when you come into office there’s just relentless transparency briefings ‘this how you do it’. In all kinds of area you get briefed by legal, you get briefed by governance. They’re religious about it, they go through it.”
The LGOIMA call log also shows Brown did not make an outgoing call to anyone on his official council phone after 7.12pm the evening of January 27, during which discussions around a state of emergency were being made.
Brown made one call on his official council phone on January 28 at 4.27pm to Phil Wilson.
A source within Auckland Council told the Herald that months ago Brown called them on the official Auckland Council number in the LGOIMA and they were surprised by the fresh number.
But the council source said the Mayor still uses both personal and official council phones to discuss governance issues and, “I think it’s just a matter of which phone he picks up”.
“He started his job with his phone number and the question I actually don’t know is when he swapped over, when they gave him a new phone,” the source said.
Auckland Councillor and chair of the Civil Defence and Emergency Management Committee, Sharon Stewart, is among the names of the six different people listed as officially having a phone call or text with Brown on January 27 and 28.
Among those called on January 27 and 28 by Brown’s official council mobile are his chief of staff Max Hardy, his communications manager Mapihi Opai, Auckland Council chief executive Jim Stabback, Auckland Council director of governance Phil Wilson, councillor Sharon Stewart and Auckland Council general manager procurement Jazz Singh.
Stewart confirmed to the Herald she called the mayor at 7.12pm on January 27, and she simply used the number she had been given for him following Brown’s election.
Stewart said she had never had any correspondence with Brown before his election.
The official call log also does not include phone conversations which Brown himself attested to in his January 28 press conference with the prime minister - although it is possible these were incoming calls not accessible by LGOIMA.
Brown said he was first alerted to the level of flooding in West Auckland by Waitākere Ward councillor Shane Henderson, who called him.
“Shane Henderson who is the councillor of this [ward] was the first person to be on-site in that street that we were at before actually, and he immediately rang me, and that was useful communication. That’s communicating so that we know what’s going on on the ground.
This phone call with Henderson is not listed on Brown’s official LGOIMA call log.
Brown also said: “I spoke and informed Minister McAnulty several times.”
There is also no record of Brown’s conversations with the Minister for Emergency Management on January 27 or 28 on the official council device.
At the January 28 presser, Brown referenced he had been “communicating facts” with “these people” as he gestured towards FENZ Auckland’s regional manager Ron Devlin and other civil defence officials.
“It wasn’t a major issue until late afternoon, [which] was certainly when it became different from a wet day. At that stage, I never left my desk and I communicated with all the broad range of people,” Brown said in the January 28 press conference with the PM.
“I was at my desk from 4 o’clock right through the whole thing to the early hours of the morning and I’m receiving information from a complex range of people who are out on the ground in a storm in the dark at night.”
No such calls appear on Brown’s LGOIMA call log.
Brown was widely criticised for the slowness of his public response to the downpour and the eventual decision to place the Auckland region in a state of emergency after 10pm when flooding was already widespread across the city.
On February 5, Brown released terms of reference for a $100,000 independent review of all the official agencies that were involved in the immediate emergency response to the city’s fatal floods.
It is understood that the review will be released early next week.
