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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

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.

Feature

Grant McLachlan

Aug 298 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.

Column

Grant McLachlan

Aug 193 min read

The Super City failed. Why Hawke’s Bay council mergers will be a disaster.

Wellington wants Hawke’s Bay’s councils redesigned by 9 August. Auckland already ran this experiment — and the man now advising Hawke’s Bay on the redesign is the one whose mayoralty set Hastings on its debt path in the first place.

Column

Grant McLachlan

Jul 97 min read

Days, not decades: Auckland already has the data to settle its bridge argument

The Mayor and the Transport Minister are arguing about whether to put a bridge or a tunnel parallel to the existing harbour crossing. I crunched the data that they ignored and modelled the solution.

Research

Grant McLachlan

May 137 min read

Auckland’s stadium decision is non-sensical — and the rest of the country is just as bad

We are about to spend more public money on more single-use stadiums to host fewer events for fewer people. Melbourne worked out the answer twenty-six years ago.

Column

Grant McLachlan - Column

Apr 294 min read

PenLink won’t solve ghost congestion

The Northern Motorway between Silverdale and Oteha Valley Road is plagued by near-daily ghost congestion — phantom jams with no structural cause. The culprit is not the road. It is the driving habits of the very residents who have spent decades lobbying for PenLink.

Grant McLachlan

Apr 23 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.

Column

Grant McLachlan

Mar 314 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

Feature

Grant McLachlan

Mar 218 min read

The roads that never were: Ten New Zealand infrastructure dreams that died on the drawing board

New Zealand’s transport network tells a story not just of what was built, but of what could have been.

Feature

Grant McLachlan

Dec 1, 202518 min read

'Ruling the Roost': How a council staffer created her own private fiefdom.

Imagine a job where you could live the life of a lord where you rule by decree and can act with impunity. Welcome to the life of Megan Young.

PERSONA NON GRATA

Grant McLachlan - Column

May 31, 202521 min read

Freedom fighters or freedom frauds? The Act Party’s local government hypocrisy

Act want to run candidates at this year's local body elections. But local body politicians who were previously Act candidates at the general election are retiring. Their track records speak for themselves.

Column

Grant McLachlan - Column

Apr 26, 20259 min read