Why doesn't humility make good cinema?
A hundred veteran interviews across nine countries suggest New Zealand and Britain's self-effacing war traditions haven't earned Hollywood's respect — they've earned its silence, and that isn't only about modesty.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 307 min read
Whose land is it — and why settle the question now?
The Conservation Amendment Bill reopens two centuries of argument about who owns the back country and what it is for — and it does so in an election year, by a government whose biggest donors deal in land.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 258 min read
Are we grown up enough to be a republic?
Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand will be a republic in her lifetime. She has not said what problem it solves — or whether we are mature enough to do it well.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 226 min read
Is New Zealand really the most beautiful country in the world?
We sell the world a postcard and then punish anyone who turns it over. The published record — and our own talent — tells a harder story.
Grant McLachlan - Column
Jun 74 min read
Is the Crown really the villain of this story?
Liam Ratana aims his King’s Birthday anger squarely at the monarch. The historical record keeps pointing somewhere closer to home.
Grant McLachlan - Column
Jun 16 min read
Who is the state really housing?
How New Zealand’s great housing experiment turned from sheltering the poor to subsidising the people who profit from them.
Grant McLachlan
May 3010 min read
A very natural progression
A real estate empire’s fundraiser, its donations, its former chief executive and a friendly columnist all point the same way. The pattern is the story.
Grant McLachlan - Column
May 1623 min read
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
Apr 1518 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
Apr 1329 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, 202518 min read
A history of Māori representation, from Parliament to councils
Māori should decide the fate of Māori seats in Parliament, Grant McLachlan writes.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 25, 20253 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
