![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JQ836Y_IMG_0705_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBy Claire Taylor, Local Democracy Reporting<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nMackenzie District Council office in Twizel.
\nPhoto: LDR\/Claire Taylor\n<\/p>\n
Police have confirmed they are investigating an allegation of assault following an incident at the Mackenzie District Council offices last week.<\/p>\n
A police media team spokesperson said the incident occurred at 10.50am last Thursday (April 16) at the council offices in Fairlie.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“I can confirm we have received a report of an alleged assault and enquiries are in their very early stages.<\/p>\n
“We don’t have any other information or comment we can provide at this time,” they said.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4JPT7W7_IMG_0671_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
\nA Mackenzie district councillor was absent from today’s meetings after allegations of assault.
\nPhoto: LDR\n<\/p>\n
One councillor, absent from Tuesday’s council workshop and a three waters committee meeting held later in the day, was contacted by LDR for comment but refused to discuss either the incident or their absence from council meetings.<\/p>\n
“Oh no, no comment … can’t talk about that, sorry,” they said.<\/p>\n
When asked specifically about the councillor’s absence, a council spokesperson said: “I am not authorised to provide any further information.”<\/p>\n
Chief executive Angela Oosthuizen confirmed there had been an incident and said it was under investigation.<\/p>\n
“There was an incident at council offices last week involving an elected member.<\/p>\n
“The matter is subject to an investigation in line with Council’s Code of Conduct, and it would not be appropriate to comment further on the detail at this time.”<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Claire Taylor, Local Democracy Reporting Mackenzie District Council office in Twizel. Photo: LDR\/Claire Taylor Police have confirmed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-390808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}