By WAYNE THOMPSON
Professor Peter Davis, husband of Prime Minister Helen Clark, is looking forward to a less frenetic personal life when he moves from his Christchurch job to a new one in Auckland in July.
He will become professor of sociology and head of the sociology department at Auckland University.
Since 1999,
he has been professor of public health at the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences - one of Otago University's three clinical schools nationwide.
Professor Davis spent weekends at the couple's Mt Eden home because Helen Clark's electorate is Mt Albert.
A frugal commuter, he mostly travels to the airport with the Prime Minister when she leaves for Parliament early on Monday.
At the Christchurch end of his journey, he catches the airport bus into town.
Professor Davis was near the bottom of the domestic travel bill for ministerial spouses last year. This reflected his few flights to Wellington - about half a dozen a year - and he paid his own way for trips to Christchurch as they were work-related.
"Helen gets me along to the more important things like state banquets in Wellington, but most other things I don't go with her unless they happen to be in Auckland at the weekend."
Moving back home, he said yesterday, was to "rebalance my multiple activities". He hoped to make his personal life less frenetic and to take on interesting professional challenges.
In December, Professor Davis was awarded the Medical Association's highest honour for his studies in Christchurch, including into the quality of hospital and general practice care.
Before 1999, he was a community health lecturer at the School of Medicine in Auckland and a reformist campaigner on the Auckland Regional Council and Auckland Area Health Board.
He was on the board in 1989 when his wife, then Health Minister, suspended it.
Yesterday, he ruled out any comeback on the local body scene because of political constraints on him, "and "I would like to enjoy a bit more time with Helen, actually".
