Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Mr Speaker it's tradition in this House that I congratulate you on your election so I do. Ha ha! I thank you in advance for the gentle and subtle direction you'll give me although that does give me disturbing recollections of thanking a headmaster for correction he once gave me.My next thanks go to the people of Christchurch for placing their trust in me. I'm really proud and humbled to have been elected by the people of Christchurch Central to represent them. I hope that I'll be able to live up to that onerous responsibility. It's a critical part of my past to represent Christchurch. They elected me; I am here for them.I know it's usual to sing the praises of the city we come from to have a bit of banter—as Paula Bennett would say—about rugby teams and about the weather and the drive home and what have you but I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to bluster. I'm here because Christchurch is not OK. Regardless of what we would like the earthquakes define Christchurch. Anyone who was there has vivid recollections of that day—my own is extraordinary but no more extraordinary than thousands and thousands of others.I was there contemplating a lawyer's lunch at 1:51 p.m. on the 14th floor of a building when it started to shake and sway violently. A filing cabinet burst through a wall. I hovered under a doorway—as if that would do any good—and when it stopped I was confused because when I looked out the window there was nothing but dust. When it cleared I saw the cathedral decapitated and when I looked across the other side of the building I saw worse: I saw the Pyne Gould Corporation building a mangled collapsed wreck and I knew then that people had died. I didn't know then that people I knew had died in there.The rest of the day is a series of vignettes: me waving down a car getting a lift home and trying to find my children who are here today. I found Lewis at school with a field full of liquefaction and Albert at home having avoided the kitchen cabinet that had fallen on to the table. And then it was a matter of finding my third Felix who was at school camp. I struggled across town with my children on bikes. I remember cycling through water on subsided land to my parents' to borrow the car—thanks Dad; it was the first time. I drove across some 70 kilometres to get Felix and there was a whole lot of anxious and stressed kids and I was pretty anxious and tired myself. It was late and dark. I found him with the kids and rushed over and he put me in my place. He turned to me and said Daddy you're here to see me in this camp show." So it was good to get a bit of reality there.But look that earthquake caused immense devastation in my electorate—others too but Christchurch's heart stopped beating. There that day the army moved in; the city was closed. Buildings were demolished; thousands of homes were damaged. The disaster of the Christchurch earthquakes didn't stop on that day. They have continued. They have continued through delay through denial through distress and sometimes despair. That is why I am here.I was a lawyer at the time and I believed that we had a Government—a Government according to law—we had insurers and insurance contracts. I believed that we would sort this out that things would be OK that we would work out this long process and that people would get their just deserts. But I was shaken: my trust in the law was shaken; my trust in Government was shaken. It just didn't happen.This society's built on a social contract. We expect others to adhere to their obligations. We live under the shadow of the law not the sword. That social contract was torn. Insurers in the Earthquake Commission didn't look to their legal obligations; they looked to their risk exposure. They used the law not as a guide but as a weapon; not as what was fair but what they could get away with.Ordinary people have been failed by Government failed by justice and failed by law. A good democracy has a process for this: it's called the courts. We vindicate our rights there. It's why we have it so we don't have recourse to other means. But that let us down too. The court put insurmountable hurdles in the way of ordinary New Zealanders: the cost the procedure the threats and the delays. So we have a system of layer upon layer of obstructions.Let us learn from this. The earthquakes did not create this problem; it was there already. The earthquakes just put it into stark relief. While the place that this happened is Christchurch it's a signal warning: rights are easy to respect when times are easy; the vulnerable are easy to care for in times of plenty.I am here because what I saw shook me. And in New Zealand today we need to remember that. We need a system that will protect the weak the poor the disenfranchised and the vulnerable at any time and in any circumstances. I am here because it is the role of this Government to change this. This isn't just about Christchurch or Kaikōura or Edgecumbe. This is about anyone who is overwhelmed or who's faced by an imbalance of power who's been spoken down to or patronised or been treated not as a person but as a bottom line. We need to stop think and change this.I know we've all got here through our own trials and hurdles and hard work but I want to pause for a moment and not dwell upon those things. What I want to do is celebrate that each of us here is here and has got here because of something: some special advantage. For myself I had a raft of advantages: probably first a loving and stable family. My mum and dad are up there today—and thank you so much for coming. They took me from a nondescript suburb in South-East London and brought me here to this young country a country that even when I was six I could tell was young and vibrant; a country where it wasn't stupid it wasn't ridiculous to think that one day I could go to university one day maybe be a lawyer. I never dreamt of being here but those dreams were possible. I just want to say firstly what were you thinking but secondly thank you so much.So those advantages that we each have let's reflect on those and remember that there are many who don't. We hear a lot about equal treatment and personal responsibility in this House but that gospel the gospel of equality and personal responsibility makes no sense when we don't start equal. I want to call out that other shibboleth of the right "common sense." Arguments prefaced with "common sense" are far too often cover for the fact that there is no argument underlying it. It's too long been the shelter of conservatism and a roadblock to clear thinking and to progress.Our task as Government is to ensure that everyone is able to lead a flourishing and meaningful life one that they choose in which they can realise their potential as they define it. So we need to move past the measurement of success in mere money terms and economic activity and to think very carefully about what will make this nation flourish.What makes a flourishing family and a flourishing person? What profits us if we have more money but if we have a community that is unhappy culturally impoverished and deprived of recreation and art where every spare hour is spent working to make ends meet and family and friends are put to one side. So against that background it's pretty clear I belong to the Labour Party: a party that has democratic socialist principles at its heart. I am a socialist.It's worth pausing—the word causes fear and loathing in some but it shouldn't because it's not anti-capital.Hon Kris Faafoi: Only with the simple.Dr DUNCAN WEBB: No heckling in maidens Faafoi. Do I get an extra supplementary for that?Mr SPEAKER: No you lose time.Dr DUNCAN WEBB: The market is a tool to create and distribute wealth but constant vigilance is required to ensure that it operates fairly that undue power is not accumulated and when power exists it's not abused. To say the market should be free is just a cloak for an assertion that the rules should favour one party and not another. Socialism seeks to strike a balance a balance that rewards risk and enterprise but ensures there's no abuse of position that work is fairly remunerated that society is geared not only to the creation of wealth but to the fair distribution of that bounty and the recognition of social justice as a critical value.We each stand here as representatives of a community or sometimes communities and I just want to identify and thank some of those. I am really grateful and humbled by the task that Christchurch Ōtautahi has given me. It's a great city with great diversity. Ngāi Tahu welcomed the settlers in the 1850s and since that staunchly English overlay there's been a flood of diversity: Pasifika nations refugees and people from all over the world.But more directly I know I have a huge group of advocates out there people I might not even have met but who have known of me and have spoken well of me and I thank them for that. Also there's some of my campaign team here. They gave so much. I think everyone gave what they could and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the enormous work that you did. It's really gratifying to think that you believed in me as the right person for Christchurch and the right person to further the mission of the Labour Party here.And finally my family: my family's had a tough year or so and my new job's not made it any easier. You know one thing I've learnt is that you can't really define a family but our family is held together by ties of love and of blood. I've got my three teenage sons here and also my brother Ken—and Simon and Sarah Mark my other siblings had better be watching.You know I've got a household of really fine men and I admire them greatly. I know we don't often use our words like we should but I know you're proud of me.Lastly you begged me not to say any dad jokes in Parliament and I've got no beef with that. I won't mince words; I'll put a stake in the ground. Dad jokes are a medium-rare well done. Thank you.[Applause]"