KEY POINTS:
Incoming Maungakiekie MP Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga's assertion that he can serve the twin masters of national and local body politics has received partisan responses from his fellow Auckland city councillors.
The 38-year-old National candidate says his plan to divide his week between parliamentary and Auckland City Council commitments will save ratepayers about $90,000 on a byelection in his Tamaki-Maungakiekie ward.
Mr Lotu-Iiga - who took the Auckland city seat with an 1876 majority on Saturday - has been doing the maths, and reckons his Wellington commitments will require he spend about two nights in the capital each week, for about 30 weeks of the year.
He intends to donate his council salary - about $55,000 a year - to charity. Mr Lotu-Iiga is a member of the majority Citizens and Ratepayers council faction.
But Labour councillor Richard Northey says Mr Lotu-Iiga risks spreading himself too thinly, and should step down from the council for the sake of his constituents.
"I don't think it's possible. One or the other is going to suffer."
Mr Northey, who was an MP and an Auckland City councillor in the 1980s - also had a problem with Mr Lotu-Iiga's plans to donate his council salary to worthy causes.
"[I] think it's a bit difficult for ratepayers to pay for a charity they may or may not approve of."
While Mr Lotu-Iiga could attend council meetings when Parliament was in recess, there were still select committee obligations, he said.
Juggling all his commitments could see Mr Lotu-Iiga working up to 80 hours a week, and his council constituents would probably suffer.
Mr Northey said he did not stand down when he became an MP, but was paid only for the Auckland City Council meetings he attended.
In the 1980s, a byelection was a citywide affair, and would have involved considerably more expense than nowadays, he said.
Councillor Glenda Fryer was also sceptical about Mr Lotu-Iiga's ability to hold down both posts, as being a councillor was "a fulltime job".
Ms Fryer - a City Vision councillor - believed Mr Lotu-Iiga's Tamaki-Maungakiekie constituents would prefer a byelection was held in the ward.
But Citizens & Ratepayers councillor Toni Millar said Mr Lotu-Iiga was not the first politician to mix national and local body commitments.
She said he was an "incredibly level-headed" councillor with "a massive propensity for hard work".
"I just feel that he will cope. Sam does not take on more than he believes he can do."
