Political party Labour Party New Zealand Labour Party Role New Zealand Politician | Name Mark Peck Occupation Politician | |
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Born 16 July 1953 (age 70)
Hamilton, Ohio ( 1953-07-16 ) | ||
Residence Wellington, New Zealand | ||
Mark Everett Peck (born 16 July 1953) is a New Zealand politician and a member of the Labour Party. Since 2013, he has been a Wellington City Councillor, and was MP for Invercargill from 1993 to 2005.
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Early life
Peck was born in 1953 in the town of Hamilton, Ohio, United States, and arrived in New Zealand in 1963. 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.
Professional life
Peck won the National Party dominated electorate of Invercargill in the 1993 election. In 2002, he missed out getting promoted to cabinet and after that, he became more distant to his party colleagues and started feeling lonely. 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.
During his hiatus from politics, he has been a director of the anti-smoking organisation Smokefree Coalition. Since 2009 he has run a café "Little Peckish" in central Wellington with his wife Margaret.
In the October 2013 local elections, Peck successfully ran for Wellington City Council in the Lambton ward. 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. Peck retired at the local elections in October 2016.
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.