astroturfs | klaut

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Matakana War Memorial heritage application

Fix Hill Street Now: TVNZ Gutsful episode

Fix Hill Street Now: Visit the campaign website

Matakana War Memorial heritage application

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Welcome to Klaut.

Klaut is the publishing, production, and communications company of Grant McLachlan – a New Zealand-based writer. Grant is a prolific investigative writer of fiction and non-fiction for newspapers, books, and screen.

A former hearings commissioner, barrister, and solicitor*, Grant has worked in the public and private sectors, ranging from a Parliamentary researcher and campaign director to a planner and infrastructure specialist. His columns in New Zealand newspapers and his pro-bono work has assisted many people involved in disputes with central and local government authorities.

On this site you will find links to his current and past work. There are several projects in development so please watch this space.

Sparrow

A Chronicle of Defiance

An epic account of The Sparrows

- Battle of Britain gunners who defended Timor as part of Sparrow Force in 1942.

It is the story of Charlie McLachlan's war: a triumph of stubborn Scottish defiance and laconic Aussie genius over the relentless violence of man and nature. Charlie survives and bears witness to some of the landmark days of World War II.

Media Coverage

STITCH UP: New investigative podcast lays out the documentary trail behind a jury acquittal — and names names

Six-part series traces four years of complaints, staged incidents and internal police records through a former ACT Party deputy leader, two sitting Cabinet ministers and the current Police Commissioner

Press Release

Grant McLachlan

Sep 214 min read

The octopus that turned on National

Jordan Williams started as an apprentice to the men who wrote the playbook. Twenty years later he runs the octopus they trained him to build — and its tentacles now reach into National’s own polling and the Prime Minister’s “captain’s calls.” This is how the apprentice became the thing his masters never controlled.

Feature

Grant McLachlan

Sep 113 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.

Column

Grant McLachlan

Aug 128 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.

Column

Grant McLachlan

Aug 93 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.

Column

Grant McLachlan

Aug 64 min read

Is Steven Joyce still running the show?

Two boardroom rescues and a courtroom costs judgment inside five weeks have put the same handful of National-aligned names back at the centre of the party's donor world.

Column

Grant McLachlan

Jul 85 min read

How noise drowns democracy

How political noise is engineered to silence debate and freeze the vote.

Feature

Grant McLachlan

Jun 289 min read

When the journalist is the target

How a year-old apology became a two-week pressure campaign — and how the architecture of New Zealand’s astroturf industry was used to take out a wahine Maori political editor in election year, while the Prime Minister smiled.

PERSONA NON GRATA