Thank you, Lyall Lukey, for inviting me to be a part of this opening panel at this your 3rd annual forum – Building Momentum. You have asked me and all of the panellists...

David Ayers Mayor of Waimakariri District
Roger Sutton CEO, Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority
Ian Simpson CEO, NZ Earthquake Commission
Peter Townsend CEO, Canterbury Employers' Chamber of Commerce
Joanna Norris Editor, The Press

Thank you all for agreeing to give up a whole day to be part of laying the groundwork for re-defining the future of our city.

We couldn't invite everyone who wanted to come today, so each of us has a responsibility to
contribute 150%. I don't want anyone feeling jealous that you got to come to this workshop
and they didn't – you need to help them organise an even better workshop for the people we didn't reach today and would not reach even if we had hundreds in the room.

A couple of years ago, a former Parliamentary colleague gave me an article to read. It was called Do No Harm: A Policymaker's Guide to Evaluating Human Services and their Alternatives.
 
John Knight, the author, takes for the title of the article a reference to the Hippocratic Oath, which concludes with the primary mandate, "This above all, do no harm."

I would like to begin by welcoming all our guests, but in particular:

• First from the Rockefeller Foundation: Bryna Lipper and Aaron Spencer;
• Second from the 100 Resilient Cities' Strategic Partners: Sandia, Palantir & Swiss Re;
• Third the team from Aecom who were invited by the Rockefeller Foundation to assist with our workshop
• And finally the local organisations and agencies that supported our bid to become one of the Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities Network: The Universities – Canterbury & Lincoln, CDHB, ECan, Chamber of Commerce, Lifeline
  

The subject of today's forum is the challenge of living with natural hazards and the risks that they pose for us as a city.
 
I don't need to tell anyone here that life is full of risks. But are we aware of them? Do we calculate probability and consequence each time we climb into our car or jump on a plane?