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
Pegasus Brief — Read the room
The Pegasus story breaks into the national mainstream. Residents are organised. Wolfbrook stays silent. And the public record on the people behind Wolfbrook is worth a closer look.
Grant McLachlan
May 236 min read
Vindicated, then banished: Three days that exposed Queenstown council’s playbook against its only watchdog
How a ratepayer-funded communications operation removed the journalist who proved it wrong — seventy-two hours before RNZ confirmed his reporting.
Grant McLachlan - Column
May 2012 min read
Donations don’t follow policy. Policy follows donations.
Stuff’s Glenn McConnell asked New Zealand’s biggest political donors why they give. He should have asked what they got.
Grant McLachlan - Column
May 195 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 great butter racket: How New Zealanders pay export prices for milk we produce
A pale $0.80-per-100g American import has done what a year of inquiries couldn't: shown New Zealanders how thoroughly the butter market is rigged against them. Why the press won't say so. And why the Finance Minister won't either.
Grant McLachlan - Column
May 147 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
A generation of ambition lost?
New Zealand's brain drain has been measured to exhaustion. What the academics keep missing is that the country is not just losing people — it is losing the kind of people who refuse to play in-house.
Grant McLachlan
May 36 min read
Who watches the watchmen? The slow death of New Zealand investigative journalism — and the industry that could bring it back
The lack of investigative journalism is costing New Zealanders - and it is cheaper that industries affected sponsor it.
Grant McLachlan
Apr 2313 min read
Has the ‘Butter Chicken Tsunami’ already arrived?
The data New Zealanders deserve to examine — without being shut down for asking.
Grant McLachlan
Apr 226 min read
Fame for sale: Why celebrity property hype should come with a warning label
New Zealand's property media is drowning in celebrity clickbait and engineered prestige — pumping prices with star power while buyers absorb the risk when the glamour fades.
Grant McLachlan
Apr 519 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
Politics101: The art of the false allegation
Political scandals involving allegations that are later unsubstantiated or dismissed represent a complex intersection of media, law enforcement, and democratic accountability.
Grant McLachlan
Aug 4, 202512 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
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
The Politics of Stupid
Oscar Wilde said: "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life." In Snells Beach, life imitates the films Zoolander and Hot Fuzz.
Grant McLachlan - Column
Jan 28, 20257 min read
The 'unknowns' that will decide this election
Many politicians have said, “The only poll that matters is election day.” What polls don’t consider could decide this election.
Grant McLachlan
Sep 24, 20233 min read
How much of our culture is contrived?
Is our changing culture making us any the wiser Grant McLachlan asks.
Grant McLachlan
Sep 21, 20234 min read
Short film to be shot in Queenstown
Internationally published researcher and writer Grant McLachlan has adopted Queenstown as the location to produce several film projects.
Lakes Weekly Bulletin
Sep 13, 20233 min read
Beware of List MPs hiding behind leaders
The Act Party list was announced on Sunday 28 June 2020. The most notable change to the list was the demotion of Deputy Leader Beth...
Grant McLachlan - Column
Oct 16, 20204 min read
