Were Auckland's 1950s planners right about the Eastern Motorway all along?
Greater Auckland's own archive of harbour crossing options shows the road the city chose not to build. What has gone up in its place — a bus corridor here, a shared path there, a stalled industrial link somewhere else — is proof of what was lost, not a substitute for it.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 298 min read
The “I know a guy” threshold: How Brick Bay Lodge was fast-tracked on the vaguest of details
A 45-suite luxury lodge on a Snells Beach wine farm won referral to the fast-track process while Auckland Council said the economic case did not stack up — and the public only found out after the Minister had already signed off.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 2113 min read
Pegasus Brief — The end of the beginning
The government has declined Wolfbrook Developments Limited’s application to fast-track its 1,000-home Pegasus West project — but the fight over the former Pegasus Golf Course is far from over.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 205 min read
Is Rocket Lab a vehicle for US foreign policy in New Zealand?
A Kiwi rocket company launches from the world's most isolated coastline, but its money, its biggest customers, and increasingly its purpose, now come from the Pentagon.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 106 min read
Pegasus Brief — Treated like mushrooms
Days after 16,000 signatures were carried onto the steps of Parliament, the Government fast-tracked a motorway it says will “unlock housing” at Pegasus — then this week finally confirmed what it had spent weeks declining to confirm or deny.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 59 min read
Was New Zealand capitalism's soft underbelly?
China wrote down the industries it intended to dominate, then found a small, indebted trading partner willing to hand them over one contract at a time.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 38 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
The tentacles of ACT: the lobbyists who never really left
A grocery lobbyist’s career move has drawn attention to one insider. Follow the money and the bylines and the network is much bigger, and it runs both ways through the Beehive.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 295 min read
Two Crown companies just spent $3 billion crossing Cook Strait separately. Why not one tunnel?
Transpower and KiwiRail are both 100% owned by the same shareholder. They didn't even talk.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 234 min read
Pegasus Brief — Scorched Earth?
Wolfbrook filled the golf holes with concrete once; residents dug it out. This week the company came back with expanding foam.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 95 min read
Is OneRoof talking down Jacinda's premium the night before her auction?
OneRoof ran its “celebrity homes don’t sell for more” story the night before Jacinda Ardern’s own auction — and its own numbers say otherwise.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 85 min read
How New Zealand Tourism saw stars rather than the purpose behind the Michelin Guide
The Government paid $6.3 million to bring the world's most famous restaurant guide to New Zealand, then confined its inspectors to the four cities least in need of the introduction.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 45 min read
Why does New Zealand spend more than almost anyone, and build so badly?
The familiar excuses — too little money, too few people, an awkward geography — do not explain why New Zealand’s infrastructure is late, incremental and over budget. The real cause is a system built to be defensible rather than right, and nothing this government has planned will change it.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 2810 min read
Can the left govern on 64 seats — or has the poll missed the overhang again?
The latest 1News Verian poll shows a left bloc able to form a government without New Zealand First. Two things it does not model — the overhang building in National’s electorates, and a rising Opportunity Party — could each hand the balance of power straight back to Winston Peters.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 238 min read
Is the Greater Auckland campaign against the Northland motorway fighting waste — or causing it?
Greater Auckland calls Warkworth to Te Hana the most expensive road the country has ever built. But picking off the single hardest stage of a staged corridor, weeks before a contract is signed, is exactly how you manufacture the incrementalism the group says it opposes.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 198 min read
TSB-Heartland deal: Did the Toi Foundation meeting make the case?
Two hours of questions in New Plymouth, and the Toi Foundation’s trustees fronted up. But the answers raised sharper doubts than the deal began with — and the most forensic case against the sale came from the bank’s own former auditor.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 188 min read
Pegasus Brief — Digging in
The petition passes 13,700 signatures. Golf New Zealand takes the field. The mayor confirms a buy-back consortium is at the table. And the developer’s $40,250 donation to the National Party reaches the mainstream record.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 127 min read
Who polices the Police Minister?
Mark Mitchell built a career on the cosy traffic between cops and a political party. Now he is shocked — shocked — that Labour has done the same.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 84 min read
Why does one poll count and another vanish?
When TOP recently cracked five percent, the newsrooms that live off polling looked the other way — just as they do when a rival wins an award.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 86 min read
Pegasus Brief — Strength in numbers
Last night’s public meeting at Pegasus Bay School drew more than 450 people inside and another hundred or so outside, as well as media.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 35 min read
