Hon Chris Bishop
Minister of Sport and Recreation

Four new appointments have been made to the Sports Tribunal of New Zealand, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop says.

“The Sports Tribunal of New Zealand does important work to ensure that national sport organisations and other parties to a sport dispute, such as athletes, have access to an affordable, just and speedy means of resolving a sport dispute,” Mr Bishop says.

The main types of disputes the Sports Tribunal hears are:

• anti-doping violations
• appeals against disciplinary decisions or not bring selected for a national team
• other sports-related disputes referred by agreement of all the parties

“The Governor-General, on Cabinet’s recommendation, has agreed to appoint four new members to the Tribunal. These four appointments ensure that collectively the Tribunal will continue to have excellent and relevant knowledge and skills, including an appropriate mix of governance experience, sports law, sports participation and administration.

“The four new members of the Tribunal are Andrea Twaddle, Dr Sarah Beable, Sam Fellows and Harete Hipango.

“I welcome the new appointees to the Sport Tribunal and congratulate them on their appointments.”

Brief bios of the new Sport Tribunal appointees:

Dr Sarah Beable of Queenstown is a Sports and Exercise Physician at Axis in Queenstown and medical director for Snow Sports NZ, having previously been medical director for Cycling New Zealand. She has worked with a wide range of athletes and sports, taking her to multiple Olympic and Commonwealth Games and touring with the Silver Ferns. She has a research background and a special interest in athletic women's health and mental health in athletes. She has a good understanding, from a sports medicine perspective, of the role of the Tribunal. She still regularly participates and competes in a variety of sports.

Sam Fellows (Ngai Tahu) of Tauranga is the general legal counsel and Manager Legal, Risk and Procurement for the Tauranga City Council. He was previously a solicitor with Holland Beckett and Simpson Grierson. Sam has also taught sports law at the University of Waikato, including lecturing on contemporary issues in sports law. He has considerable knowledge of Tribunal decisions and of integrity in sport issues. He also has had a lengthy involvement in sport as a participant, an official and in sports governance.

Harete Hipango (Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi, Ngāti Apa, Nga Rauru Kītahi and Ngāti Tamakōpiri) has recently completed six years as a parliamentarian. Prior to that, since 1991, she was a barrister and solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand which included considerable involvement in mediation, arbitration and tribunal work. Harete has a lifetime involvement and interest in sport. This includes her own participation at representative level as well as coaching, managing, event organising and parent support in a wide variety of sports including netball, rowing, rugby, tennis, athletics and basketball.

Andrea Twaddle of Cambridge is a long serving solicitor whose specialties include sports law and employment law. Andrea is a director of Hamilton legal firm DTI Lawyers and is a member of the Australian and New Zealand Sports Law Association and Association of Workplace Investigators. She has served as the selection review and appeals commissioner for NZ Rowing and has considerable legal experience within the sports sector. A former age-group representative hockey player, she has been involved in many sports as a participant, coach, administrator and support person.

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