An emotional Len Brown has apologised for his spending on his Manukau mayoral credit card and says he has learned his lesson but he also says he will go to the auditor general to clear his name.
Watch a compilation of Mr Brown's more impassioned moments during his speech
At a meeting of a Manukau City Council committee last night Mr Brown broke down in tears after saying he had been savaged over his spending.
However, it also emerged he failed to provide the correct documentation over his credit card spending in spite of warnings by senior council staff.
Mr Brown, who polled ahead of Auckland mayor John Banks in the race for the mayoralty of the Auckland super city, had earlier admitted using his council credit card to buy a family ham and a stereo but said he had reimbursed the council $579.27 for personal spending.
At last night's policy and activities committee meeting, the council finance director Dave Foster faced two hours of questioning on Mr Brown's credit card spending, The Dominion Post reported.
It was revealed several documents were missing from mayor's expenses claim forms, including GST receipts. Mr Brown has spent $16,977.22 on his card since he became mayor in 2007.
It was also reported a probe by Audit New Zealand of incomplete tax invoices showed 25 cases among the council's 172 credit card holders. Of those 13 related to Mr Brown.
One was a dinner bill for $810 from Volare Restaurant in Manurewa. Mr Brown failed to provide an itemised breakdown, stipulate what the dinner was for, who was at the dinner.
Mr Brown said he was apologising for sloppy record-keeping and said he wished he had never been given a council credit card.
He said if he had a weakness it was spending too much time out of his office and not enough time in his office on administration.
He said he would ask the auditor-general to investigate his expenses and if he won the Auckland mayoralty his integrity would never again be questioned.
NZPA