Mayor Wayne Brown harassed man of Indian descent by calling him 'terrorist', finds inquiry
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown.
The mayor has described his comments to a RNZ staffer as a fumbled attempt at humour.
Auckland mayor Wayne Brown harassed an RNZ employee by calling them "a Muslim terrorist" earlier this year, an independent commissioner has found.
The staffer, who is of Indian descent, was escorting Brown into RNZ's Auckland office when he made the remark, which he later described as a "fumbled attempt at humour."
After RNZ published a story about the interaction, a complaint was made by a member of the public unrelated to the incident.
"These actions by Mr Wayne speaks to a normalized systematic issue of racism, hate, and discrimination. Terrorism is not a joke, and neither are Muslim or ethnic communities," the complainant wrote.
That prompted an investigation by Conduct Commissioner Paul Collins, who found the mayor did in fact breach council's code of conduct.
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"The insulting remark made to the RNZ employee in the brief encounter on 20 April 2026 amounted to a material breach of the Code by the mayor," he concluded.
"It breached the principle of respect and, although it was a single incident, it constituted harassment as defined in the Code."
He noted the comment had brought the council into disrepute and "represented a major departure from expected standards".
Collins noted the mayor offered a personal apology to the RNZ employee the following day, and apologised again publicly when RNZ published its story four days later.
"The two apologies offered by the mayor are sufficient," he wrote, noting that his finding that Brown had breached the code of conduct was "itself a form of censure".
(This story was first published on rnz.co.nz)
