How noise drowns democracy
How political noise is engineered to silence debate and freeze the vote.
Grant McLachlan
5 hours ago9 min read
Why does New Zealand spend more than almost anyone, and build so badly?
The familiar excuses — too little money, too few people, an awkward geography — do not explain why New Zealand’s infrastructure is late, incremental and over budget. The real cause is a system built to be defensible rather than right, and nothing this government has planned will change it.
Grant McLachlan
6 hours ago10 min read
The game of candidate chess in Hawke’s Bay that could decide this year’s election
This election, Hawke’s Bay won’t be the sideshow. It could even be the main event.
Grant McLachlan - Hawke's Bay Today - Column
2 days ago1 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
3 days ago8 min read
Can the left govern on 64 seats — or has the poll missed the overhang again?
The latest 1News Verian poll shows a left bloc able to form a government without New Zealand First. Two things it does not model — the overhang building in National’s electorates, and a rising Opportunity Party — could each hand the balance of power straight back to Winston Peters.
Grant McLachlan
5 days ago8 min read
