Two councillors have come to verbal fisticuffs at today’s Auckland Council budget meeting.

Mike Lee and Shane Henderson, who have a history of bad blood, had a fresh stoush with Henderson at one point thumping his fists on the table opposite his foe.

It followed a run-in Lee had earlier in the meeting with group chief finance officer Peter Gudsell, who took exception to the councillor’s interpretation of the council’s debt to revenue position.

Lee followed up this exchange with Gudsell with more questions to a bench of finance officers taking questions on the budget.

He wanted to know if “responsible officers” believed that a proposal to return Bledisloe Wharf to the council was “misleading” for public consultation when the Port of Auckland is 100 per cent owned by the council.

Councillor Shane Henderson slammed his fists on the table. Photo / Michael Craig

Business consultant John Crawford, sitting alongside the finance staff, said the council does not own the wharves but owns an interest in Port of Auckland and if the port relinquishes any wharves they would be returned to the council.

“Let me tell you this is misleading language, and you need to correct it,” Lee said, prompting Henderson to raise a point of order.

“Come on, this is disrespectful, councillor Lee called me a hypocrite at the last meeting,” Henderson said across the table to Lee, stamping his fist on the table.

Mayor Wayne Brown attempted to calm things down by “telling you guys to grow up please”, only for Lee to interrupt and say he had been on the end of a “malicious story” by Henderson on social media 18 months ago.

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Henderson apologised at the time for putting up the story on Twitter, where he recalled “as a 27-year-old newly elected local board member, Mike Lee called me to a meeting with him at a tennis court in Three Kings in the dead of night for some reason.

“I can’t remember specifics, but the discussion was wild conspiracy theories about trains,” he wrote.

Councillor Richard Hills also called out Lee over disrespectful language, saying councillors could disagree over officers’ advice but the behaviour towards officers needs to change.

Bernard Orsman is an Auckland-based reporter who has been covering local government and transport since 1998. He joined the Herald in 1990 and worked in the parliamentary press gallery for six years.