{"id":511595,"date":"2026-07-06T00:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T00:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/511595\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T00:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T00:35:09","slug":"outspoken-developer-matthew-horncastle-referred-to-police-over-political-billboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/511595\/","title":{"rendered":"Outspoken developer Matthew Horncastle referred to police over political billboard"},"content":{"rendered":"

In May, Horncastle revealed he\u2019d been referred to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA)<\/a> over the billboard.<\/p>\n

\"MatthewMatthew Horncastle in front of his Moorhouse Ave billboard, displaying another political message. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

While the Electoral Commission hasn\u2019t named Horncastle, he has revealed the investigation himself on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt ran for a short time period, on an unrented screen, at no cost to anyone,\u201d Horncastle said across multiple social media posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no secret donor. There was no hidden campaign. There was no political machine. It was me, expressing my opinion, on my billboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Horncastle believed three people complained to the Electoral Commission.<\/p>\n

He revealed the commission emailed him twice in June, but the messages went to his junk mail.<\/p>\n

The social media posts expressed concern by Horncastle that this was an attack on free speech.<\/p>\n

The police and Electoral Commission have been contacted for further comment.<\/p>\n

Katie Bradford is a Senior Correspondent at the Herald. She has been a broadcast journalist for over 20 years and was based in the press gallery for 10 years. She specialises in politics, business and Auckland issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In May, Horncastle revealed he\u2019d been referred to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) over the billboard. Matthew Horncastle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1558,4548,2371,10039,29414,40924,163975,3369,111,43,139,69,164523,1523,675,18154,6791,38538,61],"class_list":["post-511595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-been","tag-billboard","tag-commission","tag-controversial","tag-developer","tag-electoral","tag-horncastle","tag-matthew","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-outspoken","tag-over","tag-police","tag-political","tag-prominent","tag-referred","tag-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511595","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=511595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}