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
Is Steven Joyce still running the show?
Two boardroom rescues and a courtroom costs judgment inside five weeks have put the same handful of National-aligned names back at the centre of the party's donor world.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 85 min read
Is OneRoof talking down Jacinda's premium the night before her auction?
OneRoof ran its “celebrity homes don’t sell for more” story the night before Jacinda Ardern’s own auction — and its own numbers say otherwise.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 85 min read
Pegasus Brief — Poisoning the well
Pegasus residents have built a moral position stronger than anything the fast-track process can withstand on the merits — a council opposed, a mayor opposed, the local MP opposed, more than 16,000 signatures, and Golf New Zealand on the record.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 27 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
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
Is the Greater Auckland campaign against the Northland motorway fighting waste — or causing it?
Greater Auckland calls Warkworth to Te Hana the most expensive road the country has ever built. But picking off the single hardest stage of a staged corridor, weeks before a contract is signed, is exactly how you manufacture the incrementalism the group says it opposes.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 198 min read
TSB-Heartland deal: Did the Toi Foundation meeting make the case?
Two hours of questions in New Plymouth, and the Toi Foundation’s trustees fronted up. But the answers raised sharper doubts than the deal began with — and the most forensic case against the sale came from the bank’s own former auditor.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 188 min read
We’ve seen this muppet show before
Matthew Hooton’s move to the editor’s chair at The Post follows a script already written in Washington — and it lands at the moment New Zealand’s newsrooms have never been cheaper to capture.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 1611 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
Pegasus Brief — Digging in
The petition passes 13,700 signatures. Golf New Zealand takes the field. The mayor confirms a buy-back consortium is at the table. And the developer’s $40,250 donation to the National Party reaches the mainstream record.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 127 min read
Pros versus cons: Why Australia will likely never host a FIFA World Cup
The stadiums are built, the fans would come, and the sums could be made to work — the obstacle is the bidding process itself.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 128 min read
Who polices the Police Minister?
Mark Mitchell built a career on the cosy traffic between cops and a political party. Now he is shocked — shocked — that Labour has done the same.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 84 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
Why are New Zealanders turning on their politicians?
Two attacks in a year are a symptom. The disease is a political class that no longer feels within reach.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 44 min read
How to takeover TVNZ and RNZ with pocket change
Stuff was bought for $1. Newshub’s TV news operation was absorbed into it. NZME was infiltrated by Jim Grenon. Is TVNZ and RNZ next?
Grant McLachlan
Jun 310 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
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
Shield or weapon? Why the new stalking law arrived already broken
Today, 26 May 2026, a new stalking offence comes into force. The bar has been lowered, the police given new powers to dispose of complaints without a court, and the records kept selectively. What could possibly go wrong?
Grant McLachlan
May 269 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
