Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has been accused of weak leadership by Chris Fletcher.
Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has been accused of weak leadership by Chris Fletcher.
Christine Fletcher has unleashed an extraordinary attack on Phil Goff, accusing the mayor of weak leadership and failing to make Wellington sit up and listen by holding their feet to the fire.
Fletcher, who has gone from voting for Goff in 2016 to seeking to bring him down at thisyear's local body elections, said a year into his three-year term "I was ready to sign a petition to 'Bring back Len'."
"JT [John Tamihere] has bravado. Phil Goff is not sufficiently charismatic. He hasn't built a team and he hasn't created a cross-party Auckland caucus.
"He simply has been incapable of bringing the right political experience to the council table to take advantage of the opportunities amalgamation allows.
"He failed, in fact he has not even tried, to bring councillors together as a team on the key issues. His approach is based on divide and rule," Fletcher said.
The Albert-Eden-Roskill councillor has had a strained relationship with Goff since he effectively dumped her and Waitematā and Gulf councillor Mike Lee from the board of Auckland Transport soon after winning the mayoral chains in 2016.
Fletcher was one of nine councillors to sign a letter to Goff last year saying he runs a "non-inclusive style of leadership" and trust and transparency at council is getting worse.
Auckland councillor Christine Fletcher.
As deputy designate on a mayoral ticket with Tamihere, Fletcher said Goff works alone behind closed doors with bureaucrats, commissioning expensive reports from consultants that only come to light for councillors under the Official Information Act.
As a member of the "B" team on council - Goff and his hand-picked chairs and deputy chairs of committees make up the "A" team - Fletcher said Goff has yet to learn it is not enough to scrape through on a simple, manipulated majority.
His weak leadership has allowed bureaucrats to fill the void and people see nothing but arrogance from council bodies like Auckland Transport and Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (Ateed), she said.
"Goff has clearly failed and another term of his mismanagement would be a disaster for our city," she said.
Goff dismissed Fletcher's comments as politics in an election year, saying he was proud of his record as mayor making the tough decisions on housing, transport and the environment and overwhelming support for a new 10-year budget.
"We got a diverse group of councillors together from right across the political spectrum and got their endorsement for the 10-year budget that sets out the major changes that we will make to address Auckland's problems," Goff said.
