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
14 hours ago4 min read
Police shouldn't get to decide who never sees a judge
The Solicitor-General's Prosecution Guidelines were meant to keep politics out of criminal justice. In practice, they let police quietly bury the cases that embarrass them.
Grant McLachlan
1 day ago6 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
2 days ago9 min read
What did Sam Neill see that New Zealand still hasn’t fixed?
Thirty-one years after Cinema of Unease, the industry Sam Neill helped build still hasn’t decided whether it wants to tell its own story or rent out its scenery.
Grant McLachlan
3 days ago7 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
5 days ago13 min read
Who really wins when councils scrap minimum parking rules?
Central and local government stripped car parking requirements from new developments to fix the housing crisis. It has made land more valuable, planning weaker, and streets unliveable — for residents and for the businesses whose customers can no longer find a park.
Grant McLachlan
7 days ago6 min read
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
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
Two Crown companies just spent $3 billion crossing Cook Strait separately. Why not one tunnel?
Transpower and KiwiRail are both 100% owned by the same shareholder. They didn't even talk.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 234 min read
Was Paul Henry ACT's dead cat?
The same Tuesday ACT unveiled its newest star candidate, the Herald confirmed the party’s own former president had pleaded guilty to further sex offending. Coincidence, or convenient timing?
Grant McLachlan
Jul 164 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
Pegasus Brief — Scorched Earth?
Wolfbrook filled the golf holes with concrete once; residents dug it out. This week the company came back with expanding foam.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 95 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
How New Zealand Tourism saw stars rather than the purpose behind the Michelin Guide
The Government paid $6.3 million to bring the world's most famous restaurant guide to New Zealand, then confined its inspectors to the four cities least in need of the introduction.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 45 min read
Is Nick Smith race-baiting over Abel Tasman?
The Nelson mayor says he is defending a national park from a bill he calls the largest removal of protected land in New Zealand's history. His own post, and his own record, leave out the parts that complicate that claim.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 33 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
Are the Greens dumbing down conservation?
From Vienna’s first menagerie to Fiordland’s stoat-plagued islands, conservation has always demanded hard, unsentimental choices. Green politics is increasingly unwilling to make them.
Grant McLachlan
Jul 212 min read
How noise drowns democracy
How political noise is engineered to silence debate and freeze the vote.
Grant McLachlan
Jun 289 min read
