Tue, 17 Nov 2009 7:15p.m.
David Clendon (NZPA)
New Green Party MP David Clendon told Parliament today New Zealand's 100 Percent Pure international brand could become a problem if the environment wasn't looked after.
"A brand that oversells itself will eventually pay the price of such greenwashing," he said in his maiden speech.
"And selling ourselves as 100 Percent Pure, without assuring the integrity of that brand, is an exercise in digging a hole into which our major income providers, our primary and processed food production and our tourism industry, will eventually fall."
Mr Clendon, a list MP who has replaced Sue Bradford, promised that her advocacy for social justice would not be lost.
"The Green choir inside Parliament has lost a powerful voice, but as one leaves another will step up, and the song remains the same," he said.
Mr Clendon also told Parliament his ancestor James Clendon came to New Zealand as a sea captain in the 1820s and was one of the two Crown witnesses who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1835.
"There is evidence that the final drafting of the Treaty document before it was translated into Maori was completed in James' home at Okiato, and later in February 1840 at Ngunguru he put his signature to the Treaty as a witness for the ariki Pomare," he said.
Mr Clendon was a business sustainability adviser and an academic before coming to Parliament.
NZPA
