BROADCASTS.com

b'

So Wayne Brown took some heat this week.

Wayne is Auckland\'s mayor and Wayne wasn\\u2019t up to much, apparently, when he should have been last Friday.

He has since apologised, called a review and rung the Herald to tell them not to \\u201cf \\u201c him over.

My observation of the week is a lot of people didn\\u2019t really perform the way they should have.

But as I have said several times this week, I wasn\\u2019t expecting them to.

This country has been littered over the years with various disasters that weren\'t dealt to properly because the people who frequent the emergency and civil defence offices are fairly mediocre.

You can add the Ministry of Education in this time around. Blame Wayne all you want but their performance was spectacular in its level of incompetence.

The trouble with Wayne, like most stories, is blame can be shared about a bit.

Wayne is a cantankerous old sod who doesn\\u2019t suffer fools. But here\'s the thing - we knew that.

I think I might have had the advantage over many who got all agitated, given I wasn\\u2019t expecting much from anyone, I wasn\\u2019t disappointed.

You see, you can\'t have it both ways. You can\'t ignore local body politics the way most people do and then get grumpy when they don\\u2019t perform, it\'s a two-way street.

Wayne won an election and he won it by a lot. He has a mandate and to this point he is operating to form.

Which brings us to the media. He doesn\\u2019t like the media and the media don\\u2019t like him.

Add also the fact the media in general take themselves too seriously. So when he calls them drongos, 1) he is right but, 2) they shouldn\\u2019t get so tetchy about it.

Wayne isn\'t setting the world on fire but equally there is no doubt in my mind the media are out to get Wayne because they wanted Efeso Collins to win and they can\'t believe the rest of the world doesn\\u2019t think like they do.

And on that point, Wayne is in fact right. He won, he has a mandate and he\'s got three years. He doesn\\u2019t have to resign and he doesn\\u2019t have to give interviews. The ultimate test of that approach will come in 2025 and it\'s called democracy.

Which brings us back to the start of this - if we all actually participated in democracy a bit better this whole week might have been a lot different.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.