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.
Grant McLachlan
4 hours ago3 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.
Grant McLachlan
3 days ago4 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
4 days ago9 min read
Why is Queenstown asking the public to fix a mess it approved?
A resort town let ribbon development swallow its only roads, blacklisted the journalist who exposed its wastewater failures, and is now asking the public for ideas on how to fix what its own decisions caused.
Grant McLachlan
7 days ago13 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
Will backlash against donors decide this election?
Imagine gloating about donating tens of thousands of dollars to National, ACT and the Taxpayers' Union. Imagine paying thousands more for a selfie at the Prime Minister's table. Then imagine becoming the reason voters can't stand the government you paid for.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 1211 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.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 97 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
Why does it take a foreign watchdog to catch a New Zealand official?
John Edwards is the latest senior New Zealander official who rose at home and was brought to account abroad. The pattern says more about our institutions than theirs.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 205 min read
An independent anti-corruption commission: who keeps blocking it?
Four parties have demanded one for three decades. Journalists and watchdogs back them. So why does an anti-corruption commission never survive a coalition negotiation?
Grant McLachlan
Jun 1311 min read
Is New Zealand the best democracy money can buy?
We are almost certainly not the most corrupt country in the world. We may simply be the cheapest to influence — and the least likely to check the receipts.
Grant McLachlan - Column
Jun 26 min read
The kids who lit matches in the mine
A motorway extension, a mortgagee golf-course sale, a $40,250 donation and a rezoning bid — all inside the same fortnight. Horncastle and Brooks aren't the canary in the mine. They're the kids who lit matches inside the underground network Auckland built.
Grant McLachlan
May 247 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.
Grant McLachlan - Column
May 1228 min read
Marking their own homework: Why the Anti-Corruption Taskforce pilot makes the case for a truly independent agency.
The Serious Fraud Office has just audited the public sector. The most useful thing in its report is the silence about who audits the SFO.
Grant McLachlan
May 74 min read
A simpler council? Auckland tried that — and got the country's biggest bribery case.
Hawke's Bay's mayors are being asked to design something Auckland already failed to deliver. The order of operations matters more than the merger.
Grant McLachlan
May 65 min read
Stupid is as stupid does: How the Police buried a complaint, only implicating themselves
Imagine committing a serious crime in front of a judge, registrar, and Crown Prosecutor. It was all documented and the Chief Justice and Criminal Bar Association were notified. Yet, the Police covered it up, which only exposed their complicity.
Grant McLachlan
Apr 2624 min read
Seven steps to a productive economy
New Zealand's addiction to property speculation is strangling the productive economy. Seven practical reforms — from taxing land and capital gains to protecting elite soils and standardising public infrastructure — could redirect investment where it is actually needed.
Grant McLachlan
Apr 17 min read
Two bills that could end New Zealand’s dirty politics era — if politicians have the courage to pass them
I have documented corruption and abuse of electoral systems. These two bills provide the tools to fix it.
Grant McLachlan
Mar 299 min read
Would they go to jail? Comparing New Zealand's corruption gap with Australia's integrity framework
New Zealand lacks the robust anti-corruption infrastructure that exists across every Australian state and at the federal level.
Grant McLachlan - Column
Dec 7, 202529 min read
