Clayton James Cosgrove (born 31 October 1969) is a former New Zealand politician. He is a member of the Labour Party.

Cosgrove was born in Nelson, New Zealand. He received a BA (Triple Major), in History, American Studies and Political Science, from the University of Canterbury in 1992 and received an MBA in 1996. Before entering politics, he worked in the Corporate Affair field within the Minerals and Telecommunications industries. He was also a small business owner.

Cosgove has been a member of the Labour Party since he was fourteen, and has held a number of posts within the party. He was chairman of the party's Canterbury branch from 1989 to 1994.

He was a strong supporter of Moore, and opposed Moore's replacement by Helen Clark. Before the 1996 election he was involved in discussions with Moore to form a new party but this failed to eventuate.^[1]

Cosgrove himself stood for election in Moore's former Waimakariri seat in the 1999 election, and was successful. During 2002 he was selected and graduated the World Economic Forum's Global Leaders of Tomorrow programme^[2] (later called Young Global Leaders). He was re-elected in the 2002, 2005 and 2008 general elections. However, he was defeated in the electorate by National's Kate Wilkinson in 2011 and was subsequently elected as list MP. Wilkinson retired at the end of the parliamentary term and was replaced as National's candidate for the 2014 election by Matt Doocey, who had previously contested the 2013 by-election in Christchurch East.^[3][4] Doocey beat Cosgrove with an increased majority.^[5] Being again in eighth place on the Labour list, Cosgrove remained a list MP.^[6]

After leaving parliament, Cosgrove worked as consultant and lobbyist, including for the ill-fated attempt to mine Foulden Maar for pig food^[16][17] and the Greymouth Hospital construction.^[18]