An August poll showed Brown with a net satisfaction of plus 25%, with 42% rating his performance as very good or good.
Brown’s council-controlled organisation reforms are proceeding, with AT rated worst at minus 11%.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is expected to seek a second term with at least one poll showing he has gone from being deeply unpopular to a hit with voters.
In a brief statement from Mangonui in Northland where he is spending Christmas with family, Brown said he plansto get through the festive season before thinking about next year.
The former Mayor of the Far North did not put his hand up for the Super City mayoralty until six months before the 2022 local body elections.
Sources inside the Brown camp have told the Herald the mayor plans to stand again and policy work is underway.
Wayne Brown is at Mangonui with family at Christmas.
An August poll by Curia canvassing a range of council issues showed a net satisfaction of plus 25% for Brown with 42% of the respondents saying he was doing a good or very good job. Just 17% of respondents thought Brown was doing a poor or very poor job. The rest thought he was doing an average job or unsure.
The poll also had a net satisfaction of plus 25% for deputy mayor Desley Simpson, who is unlikely to challenge Brown if he seeks a second term.
The poll of 2000 respondents has an error of plus or minus 2.2%.
David Farrar, the Curia pollster, said the net 25% satisfaction figure is a very good result for Brown.
“I don’t know if he is going to stand again but it’s a good rating if you are going for re-election,” said Farrar, who also does the Taxpayers Union poll, which rates the performance of the big three-city mayors every three months.
“It’s almost a tale of two mayors because you had Tory Whanau (Wellington Mayor) come in with very positive ratings and have now gone deeply negative.
“Wayne was slightly positive in the first two months before the floods and then they went quite deeply negative, but every three months they have been improving,” Farrar said.
Polls show Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has gone down and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has gone up in voters' minds.
He said Brown’s 25% satisfaction rating compares well to the favourability ratings for national politicians.
“It’s not as high as the John Key or Jacinda Ardern peak, but it is better than most Prime Ministers and Opposition leaders have,” Farrar said.
The Curia poll in August also tested the water for Brown’s council-controlled organisation (CCO) reform package.
Not surprisingly, the poll confirmed Brown’s view that AT “must be the most loathed organisation in council”, with the transport body coming bottom of the CCOs with a net satisfaction of minus 11%.
Just 30% of respondents thought AT was doing a good or very good job, compared to 41% who said it was doing a poor or very poor job.
