The body of 25-year-old tourist Jordan Lucas was found last week at the popular surf beach of Uluwatu.
Dudut Rustiyadi, head of the Bali hospital where the Waikato man's body was examined, said an autopsy indicated foul play was involved in his death.
Rustiyadi said the man's head had been crushed.
Family members arrived on Bali yesterday to identify the body.
Earlier this week a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman told NZPA that the family of Mr Lucas was being provided with consular assistance.
Police earlier said Mr Lucas, found semi-naked, was the victim of a murder.
"He was a lovely kid, a lovely boy who just loved Bali. He was here for four months just surfing. I've known him for a long time and that's all he loved -- surfing," a relative in Bali said.
"It's just a terrible thing. His parents are understandably just terribly distraught."
Mr Lucas' parents, Julie and Graham Lucas arrived in Bali yesterday where they will formally identify the body.
His former girlfriend told the Bay of Plenty Times he was a generous, mellow man, and she was shocked by the brutal circumstances surrounding his death.
Talia Marshall, 28, who works as a solicitor in Mount Maunganui, told the newspaper she had a four-year teenage romance with Mr Lucas and said she last spoke to him when he contacted her via Skype on her birthday in May. At that time she said he was in Lombok, near Bali.
"He's just a guy who got on with everyone and never got in any trouble," she said.
Miss Marshall described Mr Lucas as "a real cruiser", generous, quiet and non-confrontational, saying his death was likely to be a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She said he had just built his own home on his parents' Waikato farm and loved to travel the world snowboarding and surfing, raving about his regular trips to Bali.
