MP and former Revenue Minister Peter Dunne is one of many who remain in the dark this afternoon, more than two weeks after a major storm cut off power to his Wellington household.
The outage reportedly began on June 7th, and since then, Mr. Dunne’s wife Jennifer says he has been dejected, unmotivated, and as yet unwilling to take any action that might help bring the power back on.
“It’s extremely cold at home,” she said. “There’s just no warmth anymore. The lights don’t work. Peter’s taken to wearing fifteen bow ties because it keeps his body temperature up. I wish he’d just do something, anything, but he doesn’t seem to want to.
“He was in the kitchen this morning, making breakfast, and he put two pieces of toast into the toaster. He pressed it down, but nothing happened, obviously because we have no power. He just stared blankly at the machine, trying again several more times. And then he turned to look at me and he said ‘Jenny, I deserve this.’”
Mrs. Dunne said Mr. Dunne had appeared to reject numerous overtures to help him return power to their home.
“[United Future President] Robert [Gunston] came by with a little generator the other night,” she recalled. “He said it was old, and pretty rusty, but if we worked it hard enough, we could probably get the power back. Rob’s going to try it out anyway, but I’m not sure if Peter was even listening.”
Dunne’s power distributor, Wellington Energy, said through a spokesman that while many across Wellington were still without power after last week’s violent storm, their networks were experiencing no such problems in Dunne’s area, and it was likely that he had become completely detached from the National grid.
Meanwhile, in Auckland, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters reports that his home is well supplied, and his kitchen lights have never shone brighter.