Brown was criticised<\/a>\u00a0for not handling the emergency well and for his combative attitude toward media at the time.<\/p>\nThere has been speculation in political circles over Simpson’s future in recent months.<\/p>\n
However, Simpson told RNZ on Thursday afternoon she had “not yet made a decision about what I intend to to this year”.<\/p>\n
Sources familiar with the situation, who did not want to be named, told RNZ in December that Simpson was no longer a member of C&R and that it was expected she would launch a mayoral bid.<\/p>\n
In December a domain name, “DesleyforMayor.co.nz” was registered by Andrew Simpson, her son by her first marriage to Coromandel MP and Senior National Party Whip, Scott Simpson.<\/p>\n
When asked whether Simpson was still an active member and would be a C&R candidate this election, President David Hay said he did not want to comment until he had spoken to Simpson.<\/p>\n
He said there had been no discussions between C&R and Simpson about her joining the mayoral race but “the rumour was she was running”.<\/p>\n
Hay said he had tried to contact Simpson in the past few days but she was not answering.<\/p>\n
RNZ was told on Wednesday Simpson was overseas and would be back at work next week.<\/p>\n
In a bizarre turn of events, the domain name ‘desleyformayor.nz’ was registered by Jordan Williams last week.<\/p>\n
Jordan Williams is a right-wing lobbyist and political campaigner, known for his involvement in the Taxpayers’ Union.<\/p>\n
In a statement today Williams said when he discovered the domain name was available he registered it.<\/p>\n
Speaking to RNZ Williams said he was not involved in Simpson’s campaign and had done it as a “practical joke”.<\/p>\n
In an email to Ratepayers’ Union members, he said they discovered Simpson’s son only registered “DesleyForMayor.co.nz” and forgot “DesleyForMayor.nz”.<\/p>\n
He said they would give the domain to Simpson if she wanted it.<\/p>\n
Wayne Brown has not officially declared he is standing for mayor again, saying he would make an announcement early this year, but is widely expected to stand.<\/p>\n
He did not want to comment “at this time”, a spokesperson for his office said.<\/p>\n
Simpson has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n
~RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is growing speculation over whether Wayne Brown’s own deputy and political ally is set to challenge him for Auckland’s top job. Desley Simpson, who previously stood under the right-leaning Communities and Residents (C&R) party in local body elections, has served as deputy to Mayor Wayne Brown since his election in the 2022 elections. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,222,174,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-latest-news","category-nz-news","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12568,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12566\/revisions\/12568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}