The gift you can’t refuse: How naming-as-performance is failing Maori culture, public infrastructure, and the Treaty alike.
New Zealand's infrastructure is being renamed not to locate people, but to perform cultural partnership — through a gifting process that forecloses dissent, rewards commercial relationships, and quietly hollows out the very culture it claims to honour.
Grant McLachlan
5 days ago18 min read
Medals, alleged war crimes, and the long road to court
Australia's most decorated living soldier was arrested last week. The alleged murders began a year before he was awarded the Victoria Cross. If the law had acted then, the medal would never have been awarded. That is not an argument for acquittal. It is an argument for why this trial matters.
Grant McLachlan
7 days ago30 min read
The silent 'H': How academic vanity rewrote the sound of New Zealand
For more than a century, New Zealanders — Maori and Pakeha alike — said "Wangaray". Then academics decided it was "Fongaray". Now media have been instructed to say "Fongaaray". The recordings beg to differ.
Grant McLachlan
Apr 49 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
Mar 2743 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
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
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
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.
Grant McLachlan
Dec 1, 202519 min read
Trump actions repeat mistakes that led to World War II
There is a foreboding similarity between Trump's actions and those that led to World War II.
Grant McLachlan
Feb 27, 20253 min read
China’s Pacific strategy mirrors Japan’s pre-war playbook
Bywater's 1925 book The Great Pacific Water accurately predicted not just the rise of Japan but also China a century later.
Grant McLachlan
Feb 22, 20254 min read
Tassie soldiers left a proud legacy of sacrifice and courage that continues to inspire new generations
The story of the “Doomed Battalion” should be remembered for its extraordinary impact on the Pacific War, writes Grant McLachlan.
Grant McLachlan - The Mercury - Column
Feb 19, 20254 min read
The importance of heritage
The Auckland Heritage Festival 2022 between 1-16 October, theme is ‘Topography, Taonga and Trailblazers.’
Grant McLachlan
Sep 27, 20222 min read
Matakana War Memorial Heritage Application
Researching and preparing the heritage application for the Matakana War Memorial unsurfaced some disturbing agendas.
Grant McLachlan
Sep 23, 20212 min read
Sparrow: A Chronicle of Defiance
New book delivers epic true story of WWII’s most defiant force lands after decade-long journey.
Grant McLachlan
Nov 10, 20122 min read
