Mark Peck
Peck in 1977
Member of the New Zealand Parliament
for Invercargill
In office
6 November 1993 – 17 September 2005
Preceded byRob Munro
Succeeded byEric Roy
Personal details
Born (1953-07-16) 16 July 1953
Hamilton, Ohio, United States
Political partyLabour
SpouseMargaret
Children3
Residence(s)Wellington, New Zealand
OccupationPolitician

Mark Everett Peck (born 16 July 1953) is a New Zealand politician and a member of the Labour Party. From 2013 to 2016, he was a Wellington City Councillor, and was MP for Invercargill from 1993 to 2005.

Early life and career

Peck was born in 1953 in the town of Hamilton, Ohio, United States, and arrived in New Zealand in 1963.[1] His father, Reverend Robert Logan Peck, was an Anglican priest, journalist and politician, and stimulated Mark's interest in politics at an early age, leading him to seek positions in the Labour-influenced trade unions. In 1969 he became a New Zealand citizen. He was educated at Wellington College and then attended both University of Canterbury and Christchurch College of Education. He became President of the University of Canterbury Students' Association and from 1975 to 1976 he was General Secretary of the National Student Teachers' Association.[2][3]

He worked several jobs prior to entering politics including as a part-time tutor, retailer, factory worker and supermarket department manager. In 1977 he became a union official with the Hospital and Hotel Workers' Union (later amalgamated into the Service Workers' Union. In 1985 he was appointed a member of the Southland Polytechnic Council. He was vice president (1991) and president (1992–93) of the Southland Council of Trade Unions.[2][3]

Political career

New Zealand Parliament
Years Term Electorate List Party
1993–1996 44th Invercargill Labour
1996–1999 45th Invercargill 21 Labour
1999–2002 46th Invercargill 27 Labour
2002–2005 47th Invercargill 28 Labour

In 1975 he joined the Labour Party and in 1977 he unsuccessfully stood for the Wellington City Council on the Labour ticket.[4][5]

Peck won the National Party dominated electorate of Invercargill in the 1993 election. Soon after entering parliament he supported Helen Clark in her successful leadership challenge to Mike Moore.[6] From 1996 to 1999 he was Shadow Minister of Revenue under Clark.[7]

In 2002, he missed out getting promoted to cabinet and after that, he became more distant to his party colleagues and started feeling lonely.[8] He represented the electorate until retiring from the House of Representatives twelve years later in September 2005; he claims that he made the decision to retire at his birthday in 2004.[8]

During his hiatus from politics, he has been a director of the anti-smoking organisation Smokefree Coalition.[9] In 2009 he opened a café "Little Peckish" in central Wellington with his wife Margaret.[10] He retired and sold the café in 2021.

In the October 2013 local elections, Peck successfully ran for Wellington City Council in the Lambton ward.[11] Peck voted for Wellington City Council to introduce a 'living wage' for council employees. However he did not intend to apply a living wage to those he employs in his cafe.[12] Peck retired at the local elections in October 2016.[13]

Personal life

In early 2005, after crashing his car while drink driving, Peck spoke publicly about his addiction to alcohol since he was a young man, and how he had checked himself into an addiction rehabilitation centre.[8] He and his wife have three children.[2]

Notes

  1. ↑ Temple, Philip (1994). Temple's Guide to the 44th New Zealand Parliament. Dunedin: McIndoe Publishers. p. 78. ISBN 0-86868-159-8.
  2. 1 2 3 Who's Who 1993, p. 64.
  3. 1 2 Who's Who 1996, p. 75.
  4. ↑ Smyth, Alan J. (25 October 1977). Declaration of Election Results (Report). Wellington City Council.
  5. ↑ "Wellington". Evening Post. 10 October 1977.
  6. ↑ "How they voted in caucus". The New Zealand Herald. 3 December 1993. p. 3.
  7. ↑ "Labour spokespeople by portfolio". Archived from the original on 5 December 1998. Retrieved 10 February 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  8. 1 2 3 Gregory, Angela (5 February 2005). "MP owns up to his alcoholism". The New Zealand Herald. Retrieved 21 April 2014.
  9. ↑ "Smokefree Coalition Director Walks Out of Seminar". Scoop. 24 March 2006. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  10. ↑ Romanos, Joseph (24 March 2006). "Feeling peckish, head to Dukes Arcade". The Dominion Post. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  11. ↑ "Wellington City Council 2013 Triennial Elections: Preliminary Result" (PDF). Retrieved 25 January 2014.
  12. ↑ Chapman, Katie; Wannan, Olivia (12 December 2013). "Living wage voted in despite criticism". The Dominion Post. Retrieved 23 September 2016.
  13. ↑ Forbes, Michael (18 July 2016). "Fresh faces guaranteed around Wellington City Council table post-election". The Dominion Post. Retrieved 23 September 2016.

References

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