Auckland mayor Wayne Brown has criticised national emergency management officials and attacked the news media in a phone call to a New Zealand Herald reporter.
"Don’t f*** me over," Brown reportedly said after being sought out for comment over leaked text messages from a tennis group chat.
The defiant mayor has come under increasing pressure in the past several days - with nearly 20,000 people signing a petition calling for his resignation.
"I am the mayor for three years. You can’t do anything about that," he told the Herald.
"No one else in New Zealand is going to get 180,000 votes. That was my mandate."
Brown has been criticised for his poor communication in response to flooding in Auckland - and has been accused of being slow to call a state of emergency last Friday.
In the call, the mayor reportedly defended his actions and said he was following the necessary protocols in response to the unprecedented flooding.
"I could have done better I suppose but I was inside an office with people telling me what I could and couldn’t do."
Brown said Auckland "wasn't prepared" for the weather that came, the Herald reported.
"The emergency management people have had years of being paid to get ready for an event like that. They couldn’t tell me anything," he said of national management officials.
He also continued to criticise the media saying that it was "not surprising you guys are hated" and said many failed to accurately report his whereabouts during a helicopter flyover of Auckland that also included Prime Minister Chris Hipkins.
“I paid for a helicopter. Me. I paid for it. The taxpayer paid for his. There’s some balancing stuff. Just think about that,” Brown said.
SHARE ME