Bruce Windsor Cliffe (24 September 1946 – 13 July 2022) was a New Zealand businessman and politician.

Early life

Cliffe was born in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

in 1946. His parents were Mervyn Walter and Hilda Frances Cliffe. He received his education at Campbells Bay School, Murrays Bay Intermediate, and

Takapuna Grammar School Takapuna Grammar School is a state coeducational secondary school located in the suburb of Belmont on the North Shore of Auckland, New Zealand. Established in 1927, the school mainly serves the eponymous suburb of Takapuna and the entire Devo ...

. He graduated from the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

in 1969 with a bachelor of arts. In 1971, he obtained a certificate in management studies from Templeton College, Oxford. Cliffe married Josephine Jessie Winefield in 1969. They were to have one son and two daughters.

Member of Parliament

Cliffe was a Member of Parliament for the National Party from 1990 to 1996. In

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

he replaced the retiring

George Gair George Frederick Gair (13 October 1926 – 17 August 2015) was a New Zealand politician. He was once deputy leader of the National Party in the New Zealand Parliament, and was considered by many to be a possible contender for the leadership it ...

in the North Shore seat, and was re-elected in 1993. He became a Cabinet Minister in December 1993 holding the portfolios of Accident Compensation, Radio & Television, and Associate Finance. In 1994 he proposed Water Services Limited (Auckland Emergency water supply) bill. In 1995, with the first

mixed-member proportional Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...

(MMP) representation election impending in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

, he resigned his cabinet posts and was a founder member of the

United New Zealand United New Zealand was a centrist political party in New Zealand founded in 1995. It merged with the Christian-based Future New Zealand party to form the United Future New Zealand party in 2000. History Formation United was founded on 28 June 1 ...

Party, initially led by Clive Matthewson. Cliffe then unsuccessfully sought to bring about a merger of ACT and United, along with other smaller "centre" or liberal parties to create a "united" centre party for the new MMP environment. In 1996 he chose to resign from Parliament. The United New Zealand Party lost all but

Peter Dunne Peter Francis Dunne (born 17 March 1954) is a retired New Zealand politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ōhāriu. He held the seat and its predecessors from 1984 to 2017—representing the Labour Party in Parliament from 1984 ...

's seat in the 1996 election, and continued in Parliament under Dunne's leadership. On 27–29 May 1995, he participated in "Wellington After the Quake" Conference (page 191).

After politics

From 1997, Cliffe was the director of several businesses, including Northern Finance Limited, a property management company, and Millbank Technology Limited, trading as Zapmill. In 2016, Cliffe expressed his disagreement with Living Earth getting a consent to process 75,000 tonnes of garden waste annually on Puketutu Island. Cliffe died on 13 July 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cliffe, Bruce 1946 births 2022 deaths United New Zealand MPs New Zealand National Party MPs Members of the Cabinet of New Zealand People educated at Takapuna Grammar School Members of the New Zealand House of Representatives New Zealand MPs for Auckland electorates University of Auckland alumni Alumni of Templeton College, Oxford