“I said to myself that day ‘I’m going to find out and I kind of want to work there’.”
Ms Allan spoke of her immediate family.
“I’m one of 10 children from a relatively mixed family that transcends race, class and geography.”
Some of her ancestors arrived from Scotland in 1848.
“I have the honour of carrying my grandmother’s name Kiritapu.
“My nana spoke only te reo in the home until the age of five when she entered into the native schools system. On her first day at that school, her name was changed to Kitty, a name that she would carry for the rest of her life, and she was strapped for speaking Te Reo Maori.
“Whatever the intention, it was nevertheless the effect that my nana’s cultural identity was whipped out of her at that school and so too, some might say, was her voice.
“So Nana, I stand here in this House to honour your name, to give voice to the voiceless, who, for whatever their circumstances, cannot speak for themselves.
Her mother Gail stood up for what she believed in the face of all adversity.
“I thank you for giving me, in turn, the courage to stand up for what I believe in.”
Ms Allan said she was a proud New Zealander and referred to the county being the first to grant women the vote, taking a nuclear-free stance “when it was politically unpalatable” and embarking “on a process for reconciling of our history by, in part, trying to establish the Waitangi Tribunal and by engaging in the Treaty settlement process”.
“In 2016, I was fortunate enough to marry my best friend because this Parliament was one of the first in the world to recognise marriage equality.
“I am indebted to the members of this House, from both sides, particularly Louisa Wall and Grant Robertson, for championing something so simple as the right to marry the person you love.”
Ms Allan spoke of the struggling New Zealanders she met during the election campaign including a constituent who said, “there is ugliness in the shadows if you take the time to look”.
“Indeed, I look,” Ms Allan said.
“I saw the nine Gisborne families who lost loved ones in a period of just a few weeks to suicide.
“I saw the kids who are left parentless by their mums and their dads, who are lost in the irrationality that is P.”
But Ms Allan also said she was filled with genuine hope as part of the sixth Labour-led Government.
“Prime Minister (Jacinda) Ardern has compassion and empathy and connection to the people that we seek to serve.
“Under her leadership, and indeed the leadership of our executive, I feel like we are on the precipice of true change."
Ms Allan thanked her wife Natalie Coates, the remainder of her family and campaign “mentors” Sir Michael Cullen and Lady Anne Collins.
She also acknowledged “my friend, colleague and contemporary” Anne Tolley “from the mighty, mighty East Coast, who also has been elevated to the bench in the role of Deputy Speaker”.
