Name Clive Matthewson Role New Zealand Politician | ||
Education University of Canterbury | ||
Clive Denby Matthewson MNZM (born 1944) is a New Zealand civil engineer and former politician.
Matthewson was born in 1944. Katherine Rich of the National Party is his niece. Matthewson has a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Canterbury, completed in 1970. The title of his PhD thesis was: "The elastic behaviour of a laterally loaded pile".
Matthewson unsuccessfully contested the Clutha electorate in the 1981 election for the Labour Party. In the 1983 electoral redistribution, the number of Dunedin electorates was reduced from three to two. Brian MacDonell, who had since 1963 represented Dunedin Central, was supposed to represent the new Dunedin West electorate. However, Labour's president, Jim Anderton, presided over MacDonell's de-selection and installed his personal friend Matthewson instead. Matthewson was elected to Dunedin West in 1984. He left Labour in 1995 to jointly establish the United New Zealand party with six other sitting MPs. Matthewson became United's leader, and when the party formed a coalition with the governing National Party in 1996 he was made a Cabinet Minister. In the 1996 election, Peter Dunne was the only United politician to keep his seat, and Matthewson, who had contested the new Dunedin South electorate, did not return to Parliament. In the 1998 New Year Honours, he was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM).
He was the Director of Development and Alumni Relations at the University of Otago from 2002 to 2008, and between 23 July 2004 and 30 September 2008 was on the board of directors for the New Zealand Railways Corporation.