Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown is making it clear; no one can boot him out of office.

He's hitting back at criticism after leaked text messages showed he had complained about having to talk to the media about the Auckland floods when he was due to be playing tennis.

Speaking to the NZ Herald, Brown says he's the mayor for three years and nobody can do anything about it.

He warned the journalist, who has known Brown for 20 years, that if he "does him over" no new stories will be coming his way.

Brown likens the text message being leaked to "rifling through people's rubbish bins" and says it's "no surprise journalists are hated".