Seabed miner delighted by fasttrack, iwi sees it as reckless
ATaranaki referee wants to see more female refs on the field. Chloe Sampson, from Inglewood, is currently in her second year of a two-year New Zealand Rugby women’s rugby referee scholarship, which upskills and encourages current and former female rugby players to take up refereeing.
“There are so many opportunities in this space for women. I’d encourage anyone interested to have a go.”
As part of her scholarship, Chloe attends games across the country and works closely with former Taranaki referee Richard Kelly.
“He is a big name in the community, becoming the most capped referee for sevens games globally. It’s good to have him as a mentor.”
She says her career has taken her across the world, with Chloe refereeing at January’s World Rugby Challenge Sevens series in Dubai.
“I was a ref for the male quarterfinals and the female finals. It was a pretty amazing experience.”
On her home field, Chloe made Taranaki history last year as the first female assistant referee in a Bunnings NPC match.
Chloe first started playing rugby for Norfolk School when she was 12.
“I played for all the representative age groups and when I was 16 I was lucky enough to play for the Taranaki women’s sevens team. I started playing club rugby for Clifton in 2020-2021 which is when I also played for the Taranaki Whio. I continued playing for the Whio when I started playing for Inglewood in 2022.
In 2023 I just played for Inglewood.
She first started refereeing when she was 15, attending weekday games.
“I saw the opportunities in that space and I decided to go for it.”
When she’s not on the field, Chloe works as a game development officer, visiting North Taranaki schools and inspiring the next generation of rugby players.
“We go through skills and drills and I encourage kids to get outside and have fun. I love my job. I’ve worked for the Taranaki Rugby and Football Union for about three years.”
After finishing the season for Inglewood last year, she says she decided to ‘get serious’ about refereeing.
“That’s when I applied and was accepted for the scholarship. It’s such an amazing opportunity and I think any female interested should give it a go. I’d love to see more women refereeing national and international rugby games.”
The company behind a proposal to mine ironsands off the coast of Taranaki has welcomed the Government’s proposed bill to fast-track consenting processes for significant projects.
Trans-Tasman Resources (TTR) wants to suck up 50 million tonnes of the seabed each year for 35 years in an area between 22km and 36km off Pa¯tea.
After extracting iron, titanium and vanadium, it would discharge 45 million tonnes of sediment back on to the ocean floor.
Chairperson Alan Eggers said the proposed bill still included safeguards for the environment and communities.
“There are still checks and balances in there to protect from any adverse effects whether they be environmental or community effects,” he said.
“They are covered off by the minister’s expert panel which still needs to look at and apply conditions to any project that’s in the fast-track regime.”
In a January 31 letter sent to stakeholders, Minister for Infrastructure
and RMA Reform Chris Bishop said the fast-tracking bill would be introduced inside the Government’s first 100 days — before March 7.
“We recognise how important these developments are for New Zealand’s prosperity. That is why we are providing certainty and a faster consenting pathway for significant projects is a priority for us.”
South Taranaki iwi Nga¯ti Ruanui, which has fought the seabed mining proposal through the courts, believed the bill was a backward step.
“There is little constraint on the fast-track consenting proposal. Everything becomes open to referral to this new way of consent. It is reckless,” Nga¯ti Ruanui Tumu Whakaae Haimona Maruera said. Eggers disagreed.
“We have been through the Decision Making Committee process of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) twice and are now finalising our reconsideration for the third time.
“Those processes set a very high hurdle in terms of protecting the environment and avoiding material harm.
“We have over 109 operating conditions set and a massive marine monitoring programme to ensure we comply with those conditions to ensure we do not cause any material adverse environmental effect apart from very localised and very short term in the immediate area of extraction activity.”
Nga¯ti Ruanui, Kiwis Against Seabed Mining and other parties have, successfully argued against the granting resource consents right up to the Supreme Court.
But Eggers was undaunted. “In the end, the Supreme Court came back and said while the consents remain quashed TTR has the opportunity to have these reconsidered by the EPA and remedy any information deficit if they exist.
“We’ve done that, there are no information deficits and we’ve provided all that information to the EPA and the Decision Making Committee and that’s not finalised yet.
“We welcomed the Supreme Court decision because it sorted out and defined the law and how the EPA’s committee has to apply the law and describe its decisions.”