I laughed myself silly last week reading about the furore surrounding the women’s World Tour surfing event this week in Taranaki.  
For those who came in late, Taranaki surfers are upset that the top 17 female surfers in the world are surfing their local breaks.
Many locals are using the “It’s our break” defence, and threatening to paddle out and disrupt the biggest surfing event here for ages. Other nut bars are saying that because the event is to be webcast, millions of overseas surfers will suddenly descend on the Naki and no environmental impact assessment has been done to allow for this.
In regard to the first point, it’s both petty and childish. It’s a bit like saying that because you walk your dog along the playing fields near home, if you suddenly find a rugby or football match going on, you’re going to let Spot run amok in the middle of it. Or discovering a visiting rugby team is going to be training in your gym on a day you normally train, so you’re going to go and monopolise the bench press.
As regards millions of bedraggled surfies descending on Taranaki, isn’t that a good thing (not that it’s going to happen)?
The worst aspect to all of this is that the event is a showcase for 19-year-old Naki local Paige Hareb, the first Kiwi woman to make the top 17 on the women’s world tour. Currently ranked number eight, she has been personally attacked and vilified by anonymous internet posters over the Tour stop.
I grew up doing a bit of surfing with my cousin in Dunedin – at a time when not following surfing etiquette meant getting a punch or worse (my mate had his board snapped in half after dropping in on someone else’s wave). But if there was an event on at St Clair beach, we had plenty of other breaks to surf.
So it is with Taranaki, where there are so many great west coast surf beaches with consistent waves that it’s hard to see how this week-long event could raise such a brouhaha. Apparently the women will be surfing at Fitzroy for 18 hours out of the entire week. That leaves plenty of time for these so-called “free surfers” to get out amongst it.
Taranaki surfies have missed the bigger picture here.
Many times an event comes to a venue, it offers the opportunity not only to showcase the sport and the region, but also to develop better facilities. Naki surfers are worried about riparian planting. Wouldn’t a better option be to put their energy to the issues around this, water cleanliness, and beach access?
Of course, it’s much easier to anonymously attack something that interferes with a tiny portion of their lives.  
It does also raise the rather lofty pedestal on which the anti-Tour brigade put themselves on. “Our waves”, “our beaches”, indicate a sense of real ownership that of course doesn’t exist in reality.
It’s like the park and gym examples I raised above – it’s huffy and self-indulgent hot air. Despite all the existential bullshit, the event is going ahead. I see the Taranaki police have just been issued with tasers. Perhaps a quick jolt to the “free surfers” (free in the way communism was, reading their internet comments) systems might unscramble their addled brains so they can see the wood for the trees.