Breakfasts Of Champions

One day, Peter Cullen decided to invite a few people to breakfast at his law office. He never imagined his idea would turn into a fixture on the capital’s social and political calendar.

 

The first of what are now called the Cullen Breakfasts was 20 years ago. Wellington employment-law specialist Peter Cullen invited a few of his friends to his law office to meet and chat with MP Jim Anderton over tea and Weet-Bix.

At the most recent event, at the Wellington Club on March 21, the star attraction was Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. It drew 400 people, and almost as many missed out.

There are few things that give the onetime student politician greater pleasure than hosting the breakfasts, which take place every six weeks. One of five siblings, and a father of three adult children, he spent his childhood in Upper Hutt, but the family moved to PaekÄkÄriki when he was a teenager and his world expanded.

Cullen is protective of his privacy and is, perhaps, too well known for his own liking. He can’t walk along Lambton Quay without meeting someone from the worlds he knows best: the law, politics, religion and sport.

What do you remember of life in Upper Hutt?

Money was tight in our household, and life seemed quite dreary there, although my parents put us on a good path for education and four of the five of us got university degrees. Upper Hutt might be different these days – I was seeing it through the eyes of a child – but it was great to leave it when Dad inherited some money and we moved to Paekakariki.

What was so special about Paekakariki?