  Results of a search for the electroweak associated production of charginos
and next-to-lightest neutralinos, pairs of charginos or pairs of tau sleptons
are presented. These processes are characterised by final states with at least
two hadronically decaying tau leptons, missing transverse momentum and low jet
activity. The analysis is based on an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb$^{-1}$
of proton--proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV recorded with the ATLAS
experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. No significant excess is observed with
respect to the predictions from Standard Model processes. Limits are set at 95%
confidence level on the masses of the lighter chargino and next-to-lightest
neutralino for various hypotheses for the lightest neutralino mass in
simplified models. In the scenario of direct production of chargino pairs, with
each chargino decaying into the lightest neutralino via an intermediate tau
slepton, chargino masses up to 345 GeV are excluded for a massless lightest
neutralino. For associated production of mass-degenerate charginos and
next-to-lightest neutralinos, both decaying into the lightest neutralino via an
intermediate tau slepton, masses up to 410 GeV are excluded for a massless
lightest neutralino.
