10 minutes with… Swanndri-wearing MP Duncan Webb
Saturday, 15 March 2025
Anna Whyte is putting politics to the side (somewhat, and only momentarily) to ask the people in power how they got there and what makes them tick. She talks chess, the ukulele and how social justice and the Christchurch earthquake shaped Labour’s Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb’s path to politics.
Hidden behind a stack of documents is Duncan Webb, sifting through thousands of Treaty Principles Bill submissions. He’s part of the Justice Select Committee, tasked with sorting through the country’s largest ever submission response to a proposed law.
Video journalist Bruce McKay and I are early, but the Labour MP’s office door is open and we’re welcomed in. Paperwork is stacked on Webb’s desk, two pictures of former PM Michael Joseph Savage hang behind him, and former PM Norman Kirk balances on a ledge. The whiteboard bears words like ‘security’ and ‘cat videos’. A wrapped-up piece of art sits in the corner next to a yoga mat.
Has he just moved in? No, it’s been a year and a half.
Webb cracks up - he’s not one to take a joke badly.
“As I said to you, I've got a lot of things that are pressing and I immediately go to the most pressing thing. Hanging a picture on my wall or organising my bookshelf, or putting away the Christmas decorations, is not one of them.”
His hobbies include a spot of pilates and biking.
Webb learned chess in primary school - while his colleague Kieran McAnulty beats Webb at darts, it’s chess where Webb comes out on top, he says. When he’s angry, he plays rock songs on the ukulele.
“I've got no musical talent, but… if you can hear the ukulele, it means I'd had a tough day, probably better to leave me to it and not come in, because it really is a distraction.
“You can't be angry to the sound of a ukulele.”
Dr Webb’s background is in law, a former professor at the University of Canterbury, with an interest in prisoner reform.
“I spent far too long in the university system, and the doctorate, it's a Doctor of Laws in professional ethics, which is fascinating. I really loved doing it. But, yeah, it's not a huge part of what I do now.
“It's the social justice aspect, which is why I'm in politics. I saw that it really wasn't working.”
He’s also got a degree in philosophy.
“Everyone's philosophical, right? And I think it's really important to bring that ability to dig really deep and understand what's at the very foundation of the direction we're taking.
“The work we’re doing here (in Parliament), sometimes it's so easy to skim across the surface and not think about the foundational decisions we're actually making, about what government should be and what justice really is.”
The former minister likens working in Parliament to climbing mountains.
“There's long, arduous periods, and there's moments of exhilaration when you see something really come together.”
Opposition is tough, he says, it’s Government where Webb wants to be.
And while suits are the uniform at Parliament, Webb wraps his a red and black Canterbury coloured Swanndri over the top. The Swanndri isn’t often seen in pictures, but in the hallways of Parliament, where Webb is known for his cheerful demeanour.
“Originally it was a good warm coat for Christchurch,” Webb says. “I got a bit of a reputation for wearing it to public meetings for earthquake-affected homeowners.”
While Canterbury has his heart, Webb was born in England, and arrived in New Zealand when he was young.
He remembers being overwhelmed.
“I had no idea what I was coming to. I just knew it was a massive upheaval, but at the same time excited, and once I got here, loved it.
“I remember the wide open spaces, I grew up largely in east Christchurch, Brighton, by the sea and the estuary, and places which really you didn't get in London city-living.“
While Webb had been involved in the Labour Party, the Christchurch earthquake played a large part in his decision to stand for Parliament.
“I'm not sure I would have, had it not been for the earthquakes. I was incredibly frustrated with the government of the day.
“I spent six years working for home-owners, and I could see that it was going to be more of the same unless the government changed.”
In his maiden speech in 2017, Webb told the House, “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.”
He reiterates that to The Post.
“My story's one of thousands, and so many people suffered so much more than I did.
‘But that earthquake, everyone will bear scars of differing degrees. It changed lives in ways which can't really be described, but it's a marker.
“And if you were there, your life would be different after, than it was before.”