How Trump will decide New Zealand’s election
The road to the Beehive now runs through the Strait of Hormuz — and the Oval Office.
Grant McLachlan
19 hours ago3 min read
Walker’s words are worth a commission
Hamish Walker spent three and a-half hours in Queenstown traffic and wrote a column about it. By his own account, he is “selling around two houses every month” to people leaving town because of the traffic.
Grant McLachlan
1 day ago3 min read
Four spokesmen, one script, no answer on the bill
Bridges, Hartwich, Abernethy and now Genesis’s own chief executive have all run the same defence this winter. Watch what happens whenever someone asks them a number.
Grant McLachlan
4 days ago3 min read
Did New Zealand need AUKUS to become a target?
Professor Gehan Gunasekara warns that joining AUKUS Pillar II could turn Rocket Lab's Mahia site into a wartime target. That exposure already exists, with or without Pillar II, and that his China comparison tells only half the story.
Grant McLachlan
4 days ago3 min read
The one detail 1News left out
An undeclared conflict of interest doesn't stay hidden. It just waits for someone else to expose it — and turns the story into something else entirely.
Grant McLachlan
5 days ago3 min read
The overhang is real — and ACT saw it coming
Richard Prebble’s column this week caught up with maths this website published in April. ACT’s own campaigners are proving the point.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 283 min read
Should Christchurch City Council tear up the Wolfbrook Arena naming rights deal?
Ratepayers built the arena. Two developer families have since put their name on it. Between them sits a Commerce Commission refund, two Financial Markets Authority warnings, a High Court finding, and a fast-track bid the Government itself has now declined.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 249 min read
ACT’s small-state pitch is a big-state con
Andrew Ketels wants a leaner public service. Follow the money and it is his own client base that keeps getting bigger.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 234 min read
Next Auckland harbour crossing needs a rethink
Chris Bishop's new business case looks like more delay. It is actually the government admitting the data behind the last one was never good enough.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 193 min read
The bed tax blames the tourist for a problem speculators and tradies built
A tax on absent strangers won't fix a housing crisis fuelled by untaxed capital gains — and Queenstown Lakes still doesn't know who its heaviest water users actually are.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 193 min read
Does Te Paati Maori’s ‘Overhang Strategy’ make sense?
Splitting the vote worked once by accident. Trying it on purpose is a very different, riskier game.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 173 min read
What would it take for National to lose Rodney?
Paul Goldsmith is weighing a switch from Epsom to Kaipara ki Mahurangi. History suggests the seat will not much care whether he fits.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 163 min read
Is fast-track backfiring on National?
Hawke’s Bay, Canterbury, Queenstown, and Auckland ratepayers are being asked to carry the infrastructure bill for growth their own councils tried to stop.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 153 min read
Why did Chris Penk knock himself out?
A building industry and defence minister called a confidence vote he could not win, lost every portfolio he held within hours, and left behind more questions about who benefits than about himself.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 128 min read
Why fixing New Zealand's electricity market would wipe billions off the sharemarket
Contact Energy's record profit is being reported as a winter windfall. It is closer to the going rate for a market built to protect scarcity.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 113 min read
Luxon panics and resorts to old MMP tricks
Fifty years after a fringe party decided Auckland Central, the Prime Minister is reaching for the same panic Richard Prebble once rode into Parliament.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 93 min read
Have engineers caused the ballooning of big projects?
Blaming the profession lets the real cost driver — a broken delivery model — off the hook.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 73 min read
The problem with MMP is Luxon, not MMP
A Prime Minister who can't manage his own coalition wants voters to fix his problem for him.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 64 min read
Police shouldn't get to decide who never sees a judge
The Solicitor-General's Prosecution Guidelines were meant to keep politics out of criminal justice. In practice, they let police quietly bury the cases that embarrass them.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 56 min read
Who really wins when councils scrap minimum parking rules?
Central and local government stripped car parking requirements from new developments to fix the housing crisis. It has made land more valuable, planning weaker, and streets unliveable — for residents and for the businesses whose customers can no longer find a park.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 316 min read
