![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/a-mackenzie-district-councillor-was-absent-from-todays-meeti-QT4RRMGI2BHMFJQCO4GCOOAB2A.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPolice have confirmed they are investigating an allegation of assault following an incident at the Mackenzie District Council offices last week.<\/p>\n
By Claire Taylor, Local Democracy Reporter<\/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
\u201cI can confirm we have received a report of an alleged assault, and inquiries are in their very early stages.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have any other information or comment we can provide at this time,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
One councillor, absent from Tuesday\u2019s 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 … [I] can’t talk about that, sorry,” they said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Mackenzie district councillor was absent from today’s meetings after allegations of assault. (Source: Local Democracy Reporting)<\/p>\n
When asked specifically about the councillor’s absence, a council spokesperson said: \u201cI am not authorised to provide any further information.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief executive Angela Oosthuizen confirmed there had been an incident and said it was under investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was an incident at council offices last week involving an elected member.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe matter is subject to an investigation in line with the Council\u2019s Code of Conduct, and it would not be appropriate to comment further on the detail at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ on Air<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Winston Peters slams Luxon\u2019s leadership vote tactic, Donald Trump extends the Iran ceasefire, and a record breaking Lego set.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have confirmed they are investigating an allegation of assault following an incident at the Mackenzie District Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[158,67,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-391259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-crime-and-justice","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391259","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=391259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}