Good straight-talking joker

Bob Clarkson says Don Brash told him to

On Monday Bob Clarkson said he could be a "dead duck" by Tuesday if things didn't settle down, referring to the fuss over his comments about burqas and gays. He said he expected to get a dressing-down at National's caucus meeting.

On Wednesday night he gave a speech at a Good Jokers Unite meeting in Upper Hutt, where again he went on about burqas and gays. Earlier in the day he told me, on the phone, that he was trying to quieten things down a bit but "I haven't stopped completely". That is what you might call a statement of the bleeding obvious.

I can't think what it would take to stop him. He is quite tickled by the idea of being photographed with his hands over his mouth. "I don't mind," he says. He likes a bit of fun. Actually he likes a lot of fun - it's just a shame that some people don't share his sense of humour. He doesn't lament this fact, no doubt he's used to it.

Other than shutting himself up - briefly - perhaps the only other thing that would quieten him would be being run down by one of his diggers. He loves diggers and going on them and, well, digging things up. It is his idea of a bloody good time and being an MP gets in the way of it. He spent Saturday laying 180m of sewerage line. He was on the television on his digger, much to his delight.

"It was quite nice of TV. They wanted to prove to New Zealanders that I was just an average guy so they wanted a picture on my digger and they put it on the news for a while too." It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that this might have been used as a metaphor for digging of a political sort.

We had to wait a while for Clarkson; he was in the House which he calls "down there". His press secretary offered the photographer a beer. He didn't offer me a beer. Perhaps I wasn't a good joker.

When Clarkson arrived he tsked a bit at this. Beer should not be offered in the afternoon.

"Not a good idea. That was a bit naughty. I know when to be serious and I know when to be happy."

He gave up drinking some time ago because it gave him headaches "so I thought, 'Stuff it, I'll give it a miss'." But, "I'm not against booze, by the way. Just get that nice and clear."

While we were waiting the press secretary took us on a tour. He wanted to show us the billiard room. We were most emphatically not allowed inside, said a security bloke. We went inside, through a back door.

This was, I think, to demonstrate that people seldom go into this room, where the politicians used to hang out and drink and plot in the days Parliament used to be full of Good Jokers like Clarkson.

We sat in Clarkson's office, which I had been told resembled a building site but which was more like the outpost of a renegade branch of the Nats. You could not accuse Clarkson of running a slick political outfit.

I was told that my presence in the building had been noted, that the reason I was there was guessed at, that there was a bit of a flap. Although Clarkson didn't know about this he appeared serenely unperturbed when I told him. He had obviously agreed to the interview without consulting the higher-ups.

He has never properly moved in to his office and never will. He "tolerates" being an MP and it shows. The computer has never been turned on - he can't use it.

There is almost nothing on the shelves. The explanation for this is a long story - he doesn't tell short ones - which, for a correspondingly long time, appears to be apropos of nothing. It involves the port at Tauranga and an argument about its efficiency and begins, "Hey, I'd better say something to you here. In Tauranga port there are very few boats. Doesn't that tell you something?"

What this is supposed to tell me is that while Tauranga, on a given day, might have only three boats while Auckland has, say, 12, "Our boats are unloaded and gone, or loaded and gone, whichever the case may be. So, there you are. We don't have stuff sitting around. We've dealt with it and sent it on its way. Sound good?"

On the wall are two photographs of buildings Bob has built: a Bunnings Warehouse and a Mitre 10 Megastore. He is inordinately proud of these buildings and gets very cross when I call them sheds. He is holding a plastic ruler at the time which he waggles in my direction. He says, "I Will Not Tolerate Sheds."

Quite right, too. This is about the only thing he Will Not Tolerate.

He is very tolerant of just about everything and shows this by telling me four times that he's been having a lot of chats recently with somebody called "Nandor Tandor". Who is, I point out, neither gay nor Muslim.

"Well, he's Rastafarian so that's a little bit different I suppose. But I tolerate that. That's his choice. He might not like Presbyterians but he tolerates me too."

He says he didn't get that dressing-down. And because he always speaks the truth you must believe him. He talks a lot about telling the truth. "I'll make it quite clear: What I say, I believe, and if I tell the truth and it hurts you, that's your problem, not mine."

Still, you can't help but think there must be mutterings. Opposition politicians with any experience would know that this would be a good time to put their hands over their mouth for longer than it takes to get a photo. There's plenty to get stuck into the Government about just now and here's Bob banging on about gays and burqas.

Possibly the Nats realise there's absolutely no point in telling him to put a sock in it. He gets a phrase and he's like a dog with a favourite slipper. He is currently enamoured of one about how he doesn't mind what gays do as long as they don't try to "ram it down my throat". He concedes - or pretends to - that this is, to put it mildly, an unfortunate turn of phrase.

"Well, it is. I've changed it now because my throat's getting a bit sore. And actually [now] I say: 'Don't stick it up my nose."'

This is deliberately provocative. "No. If you knew me, you'd know that I talk in plain language. What I call plain language is how the average tradesman talks."

I had wondered how calculated what comes out of his mouth is - he tells me he studies Hansards' excerpts of rude things to say in the House. But some is plainly spontaneous.

He is going on about "that gay parade in Auckland. What was it?" It was the Hero Parade, I tell him and he gets into a tizz about the word "hero". "Why do they pinch these words! I'm gay. I'm a happy, happy, gay guy."

If he'd thought about that for two seconds he'd never have said it. Imagine the T-shirt; the headline.

So, not ticked off then but, "Oh, I have been told, well not told, [it was] suggested by Don Brash, he phoned me personally on Sunday night and said 'Look, just be careful what you say. People take things the wrong way.' Simple as that."

So, is he being careful? "No. Ha ha. No, I've got pretty colourful language. I'm not scared to admit that I'm short of big words and I can't spell very good, so I've got to be a little bit careful because my adjectives are usually, aah, colourful words like 'piss off'."

But, he says, you won't hear him use the F word. "In fact I sacked a lady who worked for me for using the F word repeatedly." This is not a double standard because "You'll never hear me use a serious swear word".

He is, he agrees, old-fashioned like that. "Yes, I suppose that's one of the problems I've got."

He is not a prude. He is most certainly not a homophobe. "What the hell's a homophobe?"

There are no double standards, no intolerance here at Bob's place at Parliament. I can attest to this. Although I wasn't offered a beer, he says I am allowed to be a Good Joker, despite being a girl. This comes as a great relief to me - and no doubt his go-ahead colleagues in the National Party will be delighted as well.