Peter Tait (mayor)

Sir Peter Tait, KBE (5 September 1915 – 31 January 1996), was a New Zealand National Party Member of Parliament, Napier mayor, small businessman and opponent of New Zealand's Homosexual Law Reform Act.

Tait was born on 5 September 1915, in Wellington's Island Bay suburb. His family were Scottish immigrants, originally from the Shetland Islands. His father Jack and his uncles Peter and Ross belonged to the best known Shetland fishing families in Island Bay. Through his early life, Tait suffered from tuberculosis, which meant that he was unable to play an active role in New Zealand's Second World War effort, nor could he become a Baptist minister.

He moved from Waipukurau, a rural community, to the East Coast of the North Island, and ultimately settled in Napier. Once established there, he opened a shoe store, which came to have branches in Waipukurau, Napier, Hastings and Dannevirke.

Tait served as the National Member of Parliament for Napier (1951–1954).

Two years after leaving Parliament, he became Mayor of Napier for the next eighteen years (1956–1974).

Tait was a Baptist, who helped to organise the Coalition of Concerned Citizens in the mid-eighties, and fought against homosexual law reform. Ultimately, though, the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed its final reading.

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