Bob the builder has just the job as National's Tauranga MP

Bob Clarkson is already planning a second term as Tauranga MP. Picture / Mark Mitchell

Bob Clarkson has got news for anyone in the National Party who sees him as a one-term MP whose usefulness ended when he broke Winston Peters' grip on the Tauranga seat.

The 67-year-old would like a second term and he has already picked out a job for himself where he can use his construction background - under-secretary to ministers such as Bill English and Simon Power, vetting their major construction contracts for new schools and prisons and the like.

He was - and still is - a big-time, wealthy property developer in Tauranga with a private stadium and a public reputation for saying it as it is - or more precisely, saying it how he thinks it should be, and rather loudly.

He has brought his simple home-spun advice and earthy experience to Parliament.

One MP says listening to him speak is like listening to your grandfather leaning on a bar lamenting at how simple it would be to fix the problems of the world if only they'd listen to his ideas (though Mr Clarkson doesn't drink).

His stream of advice last week - to Housing New Zealand Corporation at a select committee - earned him a friendly rebuke from one of his colleagues, Judith Collins.

She pointedly explained that he was espousing policy of no political party after he explained to the officials how they could save $200 million to $300 million a year if there were no state houses and the Government simply paid all the rent for the present tenants who found houses in the private sector.

"They've twisted it around to me, saying we should sell the state houses," Mr Clarkson said later.

"I'm not saying that at friggin' all. I'm just saying there's a better way to do it."

He wants to introduce a private member's bill that says MPs are not allowed to tell lies in Parliament.

Actually his real private member's bill submitted for the ballot would allow New Zealanders to build their own homes, licensed or unlicensed.

"Norm Kirk built his own house and it is still standing there."

Mr Clarkson is National's associate housing, building and construction spokesman and has been doing a lot of sums on leaky homes as well to highlight what he sees as wastage in the adjudication process.

He has an office on the third floor of Parliament between old hands Bill English and David Carter. Tau Henare is down the corridor, and he calls it the Bob to Tau West Wing.

Mr Clarkson says he doesn't exactly enjoy his new job.

"Tolerating it, I would say."

He has a hand-drawn target posted to his door, saying "Bang your head here."

That's because he gets so frustrated at being in Opposition.

"That's about all you can do."

He has given five speeches so far, all of them carefully written out, for which he has been teased by Government members.

Occasionally he strays from the script, suggesting in one speech, for example, that women in New Zealand should have more babies, "one for him, one for her and one for New Zealand".

"I try to get into facts. A lot of the speeches, on both sides, talk political fluff talk. I've got to be careful here. My colleagues might get a bit snotty if I don't watch myself but there's a lot of fluffy talk talked.

"I have a lot of difficulty in doing that. I'd rather talk about the facts. And I won't tell lies."

He sits full-time on the transport and industrial relations select committee but subbed into the social service committee last week when housing officials were before it.

In his own caucus he is most friendly with Hamilton East MP and bachelor David Bennett - and encouraged him in the House to start reproducing for the health of the country.

But one of the more unlikely friends he has made is Green MP and Rastafarian Nandor Tanczos. The pair have been required to share a bench in the House since November, when Mr Tanczos returned to Parliament after the death of co-leader Rod Donald.

"He's quite an intelligent rooster," Mr Clarkson said. "He's easy to speak to. We don't argue. I get on with him real good. In fact, I actually enjoy his company. There'd be a lot worse people to sit next to."

Mr Clarkson isn't getting too bedded in in Wellington. He spends his two nights a week when the House is sitting in a hotel rather than a flat.

His office has a temporary feel - more like a building site office than one that has received a lot of attention. With one exception.

There is a photograph of himself with Japanese ambassador Masaki Saito. With colleagues Richard Worth, Mark Blumsky and Chris Finlayson, he was a recent dinner guest at the ambassador's home.

"I'm going to toffee-nose here now," he says, describing the eight-course dinner. "Let's say I was way above my station."

He says he has a "full-on" job dealing with constituents in Tauranga but on the odd occasion when he has a long day "I sneak away on my building site and get on the digger. That's my idea of having a break."

He has learned two things since becoming an MP: "I didn't know that so many people had so many problems - you have got the nutters, of course, and I've got to be careful saying that.

"You have got them. But generally a lot of people have got a lot of problems. And the other thing that has stuck out is how many people help a lot of people."

And how does he adjust from being a big cheese in Tauranga to a beginner in politics?

It doesn't worry him because, beginner or not, he says party leader Don Brash respects his opinions "so I live on that to a certain extent".

"The secret in life is knowing your limitations."