Dalziel Lianne: General Debate 
Dalziel Lianne: General Debate 
[Volume:666;Page:13988] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I offer my appreciation to the whips for allowing me to speak today as this is the first day that I have managed to get away from Christchurch. My electorate of Christchurch East has been hit very badly by the earthquake and it has some of the most damaged suburbs in the city. I live in Bexley which is one of those suburbs. People have asked me over the last few days how I am and I say to the House that I am not very good. I have listened to constituents pour out their hearts about the loss of their dream homes and say they do not know how they will ever be able to recover from that loss. Some of those dream homes face our waterways such as the Bexley Wetland Horseshoe Lake Reserve the Avon River where Dallington is located and the lagoon at Brooklands. 
The tremendously hard thing that I have had to cope with over the last few days is listening to the tragedy that I have heard poured out. I am a bit of a sponge for that sort of thing and I know that is my great weakness in life. But I really have been impressed by the willingness of people to help others even though they are suffering themselves. I have never experienced anything like the earthquake. Those members who know me well know that I am terrified of earthquakes but my terror has been located in Wellington. It was not located in Christchurch and I have had my world turned upside down—literally. 
Robbie and I set off pretty early on as our house looked pretty good. We wanted to see how the electorate was doing. We went through Bexley where we live and there was lots of flooding there which members will have seen on the television. We went on to Tumara Park Parklands and Brooklands. The volunteer fire brigade at Brooklands gave me my first coffee for the day. I just want to put that on the record because it was instant coffee and I did not care about that. Those who know me really well will know it was pretty special that I was prepared to love instant coffee at that moment. We had no water or power at home so that was why I was hanging out for a coffee. I attended the Brooklands civil defence meeting at 9 o’clock. Although there was not much to be reported there the meeting really emphasised for me very early on how important the volunteer networks are especially in the suburbs a little bit further out from the core infrastructure that the inner-city suburbs enjoy. 
I then went to Dallington and saw it had sustained serious damage. But what I saw at St Paul’s School really broke my heart. I had visited the school only 3 days before so to see the playground completely cut up the church falling over at the back—and the parish had buried Father Miles O’Malley only the week before. I spoke to a number of people around there and they said the damage probably would have broken his heart so in a way it was a blessing that he was spared seeing the tragedy that has befallen that community. I came home exhausted and I slept on the couch downstairs that night. 
On the following day Brendon Burns left a message on my answering machine. He and Phil Goff were on their way out to Kaiapoi with Carmel Sepuloni. They stopped at a petrol station and encountered a very irate taxi driver who lived in my electorate and who said nobody had been to see them. So I went to Kingsford Street and I was shocked at what I saw. People had no power no water and no sewerage. There was silt everywhere. That was when I started to learn about liquefaction; I had never heard of it before. It looked like a war zone. The silt was everywhere; people were working tirelessly with shovels and wheelbarrows. I spoke to some residents on the side streets and they really did feel quite forgotten. 
I just put on the record my congratulations to Roger Sutton and his team. I used his direct line only three times in that whole period and each time the call was followed up. I also put on the record the importance of elected representatives having a direct line. People rely on us to be able to get a message through when there is an urgent situation and we need to have a direct line. We now have it but it was 10 days after the earthquake before we got it. 
That day was when some of my constituents let me in to take photographs of some of the damage and I put them up on my Facebook page so that people could see them. That was done to show that these homes were not all older ones; they were 4 to 5 years old. They were dream homes that people had saved up for. 
The next day Kath one of my staff members and I left the office to do a quick scan around Bexley and then went into South New Brighton. I then joined up with Councillor Chrissie Williams. Because I needed support and she needed support we worked together. 
I am happy to work with that community. I feel privileged and proud to represent it in Parliament and I will help it to rebuild.