Auckland mayor Wayne Brown rejects he put council in disrepute with 'terrorist' comment aimed at RNZ employee

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown is rejecting a finding he put the council in disrepute by saying an RNZ employee looked like a "Muslim terrorist".An independent commissioner found the comments Brown made breached Auckland council's code of conduct earlier this month.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.Appearing on Ryan Bridge Today, on Wednesday, Brown told journalist Katie Bradford, he did not accept the finding.He said the comment had "been and gone" and he had to live with it."I have a sense of humour which not everybody has unfortunately and I didn't realise that that was a problem."You know we're a dull society as it is and there are people determined to make it duller than it already is."He insisted he did not call the employee a terrorist, but that he "looked like one"."I said someone was a very scruffy person and looked like one ... That's completely different."Brown then questioned why taxes had to fund RNZ.In a written statement to RNZ less than two weeks ago, Brown said he accepted the findings of the investigation."I acknowledged at the time that I got this one wrong and apologised. We can now move forward," he said.