The Bullshit Economy
New Zealand has constructed an elaborate economy out of its own inefficiencies.
Grant McLachlan
4 days ago25 min read
The economist who can’t see what he doesn’t want to fix
Oliver Hartwich says breaking up the gentailers won’t cut your power bill. He’s right — but for the wrong reasons. The real solution is one his funders would never allow him to propose.
Grant McLachlan
4 days ago17 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
6 days ago18 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.
Grant McLachlan
Mar 314 min read
The $16 billion battery that runs on electricity it doesn’t have
There is a particular kind of infrastructure madness that only becomes visible once you draw a map.
Grant McLachlan
Mar 306 min read
Rivers of wasted power: How New Zealand's three great hydro systems underperform their physical potential — and who benefits from the gap
If the Waikato/Tongariro, Clutha, and Waitaki hydro schemes operated to its potential, it would eliminate the need for coal and gas generation - and lower electricity prices substantially.
Grant McLachlan
Mar 2441 min read
Why aren't we there yet? The road New Zealand already replaced — and the one it should replace next.
The Manawatū Gorge closed without warning. Nine years and $824M later, we had a new road. The Remutaka is showing the same signs. Do we act now — or wait for the hill to make the decision for us?
Grant McLachlan
Mar 33 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
Power Failure: What is wrong with the New Zealand electricity industry
Three decades after the most radical electricity market reforms in the developed world, New Zealanders are paying record prices for power generated by assets their grandparents built. Here is a comprehensive investigation into what went wrong — and what a genuine solution looks like.
Grant McLachlan
Feb 2813 min read
The Cook Strait Tunnel: Has Elon Musk made it feasible?
The question shouldn't be “How much will it cost?”
The question should be “At what cost does this become feasible?”
Grant McLachlan
Feb 29 min read
New Zealand's Property-Industrial Complex: A democratic warning
In his 1961 farewell address, President Eisenhower warned America about the military-industrial complex. In 2024, New Zealand faces its own existential threat: the property-industrial complex has consumed our democracy whole.
Grant McLachlan - Column
Dec 9, 20254 min read
When good intentions paved the road to gridlock: New Zealand’s cycleway saga
I used to cycle across town to school without a second thought about safety. The roads were shared space, drivers watched out for cyclists, and common sense prevailed. That was before cycling became an industry.
Grant McLachlan
Dec 3, 20254 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
The Immigration Tap: How National turned a housing crisis into a growth strategy
For nearly a decade, National governments have run the same cynical playbook: when the economy falters, turn on the immigration tap. It’s economic fraud masquerading as policy.
Grant McLachlan
Nov 30, 202510 min read
Investigative journalism master class eviscerating corrupt council
In an era when media organisations frantically downsize, replacing substance with clickbait and advertorial content, a remarkable counter-narrative is unfolding in Queenstown.
Grant McLachlan
Apr 16, 20256 min read
Has Queenstown exceeded capacity?
Queenstown risks destroying the very reason people visit the destination. With the sewerage plant overflowing, can it grow any further?
Grant McLachlan
Feb 7, 20254 min read
Is Queenstown's "Road to Nowhere" a waste of money?
The Queenstown upgrade of Melbourne & Henry Streets has been heralded as a bypass of Queenstown's CBD. Was the $128m price tag worth it?
Grant McLachlan
Feb 5, 20251 min read
Groundhog Day at New Zealand's worst intersection
New Zealand's worst intersection symbolises decades of vested interests and dirty politics dividing an increasingly irrelevant community.
Grant McLachlan
Dec 12, 202411 min read
Signs that voters want change
One sign that voters want change is when they don’t take the government seriously. A sure sign is when authorities won’t enforce those laws.
Grant McLachlan
Feb 19, 20233 min read
