Community leader Dave Letele calls for Auckland mayor Wayne Brown to resign after ‘absolute disgrace’ of response

Community advocate Dave Letele is calling for the Auckland mayor to resign, saying his lack of leadership and response during the weekend’s emergency event has been an “absolute disgrace”.

“You can’t keep blaming advisers. At the end of the day, you’re the leader. You set the tone,” he told TVNZ’s Breakfast show this morning.

“My message to Wayne is … I think he’s out of his depth. This was his opportunity to really stand up and deliver. He just hasn’t.

“I’d go as far as saying he needs to resign over this. It’s just been a total, absolute disgrace and you can’t blame advisers because you’re the leader.”

Letele, a former professional boxer, is a well-known face in the community – particularly in South Auckland – as part of his work for the company he founded: Buttabean Motivation (BBM) food distribution centre in Wiri.

The centre provided huge support for the local community and particularly for Māori and Pasifika.

“As soon as I knew this was happening, I sent a message to our team saying: ‘We’re on. We’re going. You know – let’s go’.”

Letele said that that is what was needed to be done by authorities as soon as the heavy rain and weather got worse.

He said authorities needed to get in touch with community groups such as theirs who were on the ground every day with their communities and therefore knew what they needed, when – and particularly, how to get it to them.

That quick response for locals, by locals, was praised during the Covid-19 response and particularly Māori and Pacific community groups and health providers who provided targeted support for their people.

Letele said when the weather got worse on Friday, he put out a call on all his social media channels, including Facebook and Instagram – asking people for donations of clothes and food and volunteers.

The response was immediate, with a queue of people turning up at their site and businesses including supermarket bosses who were calling for details about what items were needed the most and how they could provide them.

Letele’s words come as Brown faces ongoing criticism about his and Auckland Council’s lack of response to the emergency situation on Friday.

The mayor’s failure to declare a state of emergency in the city until hours after flooding had already hugely impacted the region has also been slammed.