Seven steps to a productive economy
New Zealand's addiction to property speculation is strangling the productive economy. Seven practical reforms — from taxing land and capital gains to protecting elite soils and standardising public infrastructure — could redirect investment where it is actually needed.
Grant McLachlan
23 hours ago7 min read
Auckland’s missing motorway has been hiding in plain sight for seventy years
The Eastern Motorway — State Highway 17 — has a vacant number, protected land, and a proven funding model. All it lacks is a government with the wit to act.
Grant McLachlan
2 days ago4 min read
The $16 billion battery that runs on electricity it doesn’t have
There is a particular kind of infrastructure madness that only becomes visible once you draw a map.
Grant McLachlan
3 days ago6 min read
Two bills that could end New Zealand’s dirty politics era — if politicians have the courage to pass them
I have documented corruption and abuse of electoral systems. These two bills provide the tools to fix it.
Grant McLachlan
4 days ago9 min read
New Zealand’s entrenched culture of corruption
Australia was settled by convicts.
New Zealand was settled by conmen.
While Australia convicts corruption, New Zealand condones it because it never knew any better.
Grant McLachlan
6 days ago43 min read
Toothless by design: how New Zealand’s competition law fails consumers — and why it must change
Since I was a law student, I have analysed the weaknesses in New Zealand's competition laws. Today, I dusted off a 30-year old law assignment and updated a bill to fix it.
Grant McLachlan
Mar 2510 min read
Rivers of wasted power: How New Zealand's three great hydro systems underperform their physical potential — and who benefits from the gap
If the Waikato/Tongariro, Clutha, and Waitaki hydro schemes operated to its potential, it would eliminate the need for coal and gas generation - and lower electricity prices substantially.
Grant McLachlan
Mar 2441 min read
Price gouging at the pump: the regulator's empty tank
In Australia, the government regulator is investigating price gouging by petrol companies. Here, the Commerce Commission told us to download the Gaspy app. Why?
Grant McLachlan
Mar 2310 min read
Why aren't we there yet? The road New Zealand already replaced — and the one it should replace next.
The Manawatū Gorge closed without warning. Nine years and $824M later, we had a new road. The Remutaka is showing the same signs. Do we act now — or wait for the hill to make the decision for us?
Grant McLachlan
Mar 33 min read
Drowning in its own harbour: How Auckland's Waitemata Harbour crossings epitomise everything wrong with Auckland politics
In the history of large Western democracies, few cities of comparable size have managed to so comprehensively, repeatedly, and expensively fail themselves on a single piece of infrastructure as Auckland has with the crossing of its own harbour. The Waitemata Harbour is not a vast or treacherous body of water — it is barely a kilometre wide at the bridge point. Sydney crosses a harbour roughly five times wider. Yet Auckland has spent more than 160 years proposing, debating, di
Grant McLachlan
Mar 219 min read
Power Failure: What is wrong with the New Zealand electricity industry
Three decades after the most radical electricity market reforms in the developed world, New Zealanders are paying record prices for power generated by assets their grandparents built. Here is a comprehensive investigation into what went wrong — and what a genuine solution looks like.
Grant McLachlan
Feb 2813 min read
Manufacturing the poor: How neoliberalism built the welfare state it loves to hate
How neoliberal governments manufactured the social crises they campaign against — and why beneficiary bashing is the oldest con in New Zealand politics.
Grant McLachlan
Feb 2718 min read
Thomas Bracken: Not Understood
Thomas Bracken wrote NZ's national anthem and coined 'God's Own Country.' He died in poverty, buried in a pauper's grave. His satire was so perfect that 126 years later, we still don't realize we're singing a protest song. The ultimate 'Not Understood.'
Grant McLachlan
Feb 1611 min read
When noise drowns out democracy: The predictable playbook of environmental campaigns
In environmental battles, the winner isn't determined by facts—it's determined by who controls the noise. Create enough controversy, enough division, enough exhaustion, and people simply tune out. By the time Sustainable Tarras' legitimate questions get answers, no one's listening anymore. It's a strategy I've seen deployed countless times. And it always works.
Grant McLachlan
Feb 136 min read
The Cook Strait Tunnel: Has Elon Musk made it feasible?
The question shouldn't be “How much will it cost?”
The question should be “At what cost does this become feasible?”
Grant McLachlan
Feb 29 min read
The unintended consequences of the gang patch ban
New Zealand's gang patch ban has removed visible insignia from public view—but gang membership has grown by over 700. Has the legislation made communities safer, or has it simply made an existing threat harder to identify and more attractive to join?
Grant McLachlan
Jan 3128 min read
In Cold Blood: The calculating mind of Clayton Weatherston
I sat in the same finance lectures as Clayton Weatherston. I watched him absorb a lesson on the economics of murder—how killers weigh costs against benefits, how provocation could reduce a sentence, how the average murderer served fifteen years. When he stabbed Sophie Elliott 216 times, was he running the numbers? Eighteen years later, he faces the Parole Board. Everyone miscalculated—Clayton, Sophie, and the politicians who abolished provocation thinking it would save lives.
Grant McLachlan
Jan 2922 min read
The man who made everyone feel larger than life
I had chronicled Sir Tim for twenty-five years, and in that time, he never once disappointed me with his generosity.
Grant McLachlan
Jan 203 min read
Democracy demands more than blind obedience
Road safety campaigner Geoff Upson raised valid concerns, yet the comment section revealed a disturbing civic illiteracy about how democracy actually works.
Grant McLachlan
Dec 15, 20253 min read
The Long Road to Parihaka: A Writer's Journey
I never set out to become a writer. Like most paths that matter, it chose me rather than the other way around.
Grant McLachlan
Dec 10, 20258 min read
