A fellow political candidate is urging NZ First List MP Clayton Mitchell to retain his position as a Tauranga City councillor – saving ratepayers $69,000.

NZ First List MP Clayton Mitchell outside Tauranga City Council. Photo by Bruce Barnard.

Tauranga independent candidate Rusty Kane is throwing his weight behind Clayton's ability to hold down both positions, despite public response differing.

Clayton securing a role in Parliament at the general election means he is giving up his Tauranga City councillor role – honouring a promise he made to the community.

Asking the public through a Sun Media poll whether they think he should keep his council position if he ends up in the Beehive, 401 of 525 votes wanted Clayton to give up his seat and focus solely on government.

Clayton, who has been in his council role less than a year, has ruled out writing a cheque for the $69,000 by-election.

Rusty says Clayton should be given the chance to prove to ratepayers and taxpayers he is capable of doing both roles.

He believes it is a prime opportunity for Tauranga to have an extra 'open door and ear” to Parliament – something lacking in the past.

A breakdown supplied by TCC shows by-election costs are broken down into three key areas; management fees, voting paper processing, and ‘other costs'.

Management fees are paid to electionz.com for the Electoral Officer to undertake tasks, administration costs are associated to the voter paper processing and other costs include postage, public notices and photocopying.

'In my opinion having a councillor who is also an MP would be of great benefit to the council and for those who elected him to both jobs,” says Rusty.

'If I was us [the public], I would ask Clayton to reconsider staying on as councillor, the advantages of him staying on at TCC far outweigh any perceived disadvantage.”

But Clayton says he will listen to what the people have said. He is reluctant to ask people to poll again and reconsider.

Clayton says with NZ First now on the cross benches, opposed to in power, the workload albeit considerable is not as large as first envisaged.

'However if people did strongly come out and say ‘Clayton we want you to stay onboard' I would love to, I have always said that.

'My thoughts, from a city point of view, it made sense for me to stay on board for at least a six month trial period, at no cost to the city, to see how I do get on.”