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HUGH BARTLEY: All right, so that's if you're the affirmative. But what if you're the negative? You're listening to this definition, and you've heard something that you haven't quite expected. What should you do then?

The first thing to note here is you should always remember that first negative in the whole negative team has to agree with the affirmative definition. That means they agree that the affirmative's plan is their plan. That is what they're proposing in the debate.

You can't whinge and whine and say, oh, you should have banned cars that transport elderly people because we made this great argument about that. And now it won't work. You can't do that. You have to accept the definition that's been given, but you might be able to think of a whole lot of reasons why the plan is a dumb idea. So keep that in mind.

The other thing is you don't have to agree that the definition will necessarily lead to a certain outcome. So the affirmative can't model in that now everyone will just magically catch public transport to work. They can't do that. They have to step through why that's likely to be the case. They have to step through how people will respond to that change.

OK. So you're a negative team. Something unexpected's come up. There are 3 questions I want you to ask. The first of those is, is this a big deal? Or can I just tweak my argument a little bit to fit in with this new definition?

So let's say the affirmative says that Hobart and Darwin, although they may be capital cities, they're pretty small cities. And so they're not major cities in the topic. And that's really annoying for you because you've prepared an argument about how lots of people in regional areas in Tasmania or in the Northern Territory commute in and out of Hobart and Darwin each day. And it's going to be annoying for them.

You might go, oh, that's annoying. But you can fix it pretty easily by just changing your argument and using the examples of Sydney and Melbourne because I'm sure there are farmers and people in regional areas outside of Sydney and Melbourne that also go into those cities that would be inconvenienced in the same way. So if you can change your argument, please do. And that's the first thing you should try to do.

Question 2, does the change widen or narrow the debate, i.e., is the change bigger or smaller than you were expecting or than is probably what the topic was anticipating? Let's start with if the change is bigger. Usually, this is where the affirmative has proposed some additional measures they've done a lot more than you would expect, or they've made a much bigger change. And as the negative team, your job, then, is to point to even bigger harms that that larger change causes.

So let's say the affirmative in this topic says that absolutely all cars are banned in the CBD, no matter who's in them, no matter who's driving them. You're going to say to yourself, sweet as. We can now make these extra arguments about elderly and disabled people. And we can make an argument about ambulances and postmen passing. Whatever. So that's great.

Sometimes, though, the affirmative will widen a debate in a way that it doesn't have many harms. For example, they might say, well, we'll do more bus services. If you're the negative there, that's fine. You can support that too because it's not mutually exclusive with the topic. The topic only says that the affirmative has to support banning cars, and the negative has to negate that.

But the negative doesn't need to be bullied into being anti-buses and light rail. They can support those things too. But they also support cars being able to drive around the CBD. So that's OK. So if the affirmative widens the change, consider the extra harms that that initiates. And also, consider whether or not you can adopt that as something that your side supports too.

Now let's talk about if the affirmative narrows the debate or if they propose a smaller change. In this case, what you need to do is point to the affirmative's failure to fulfil their own objectives in the debate. Point out the contradiction between their narrow definition and the supposed impacts of their arguments, right?

So let's say that the affirmative says, well, we're going to ban cars in the CBD but only 1 day a week from 7:00 to 9:00 AM. That's great. But that doesn't really fix the environment or traffic. It's just probably going to annoy people who forget that Thursday is car-free day in Perth.

So point out that it goes against their very argument. And the affirmative is really not doing themselves a favour. And they're not going to win the debate because they can't prove any benefits from their model.

So that's the second question. Normally, you should do these first and second things together. So change your arguments, step 1. And step 2, point out that the affirmative's model carries extra harms or contradicts their main points if you need to.

Now we get into question 3. So let's say the affirmative gives an incomplete or completely inadequate definition. Has that happened? Don't complain and say, ugh, they failed to define the topic. You suck, affirmative team. Instead, just explain what's likely to happen as a result of this topic being implemented and why that's a bad thing.

So let's say affirmative doesn't say that public transport services are going to be increased now that they've banned cars. You could say something like this. You could say, well, public transport services are not going to increase. And people will be stranded in the city.

Why? Because most bus services in Sydney are privatised. They're run by private companies, and they're quite reluctant to add on extra services unless they're sure that there will be a large demand for those services. Therefore, if you're stuck in the city in the middle of the day or at nighttime or on the weekend, you probably won't be able to get a bus home because those private bus companies haven't added extra services.

Cool? So if the affirmative gives an incomplete definition or misses something out, you can assume or explain why something is likely to happen and why that's a bad thing. So that's great for your side too.

Warning, though. Don't do it if it's something obvious. If the affirmative doesn't explain what the CBD is, you can't assume and make some silly argument about how all of Sydney, including Penrith and Palm Beach, is the CBD because that's probably not going to fly in the debate.

All right, so those are your tips for the negative for responding to a definition and, of course, the tips from the affirmative for making one. The last thing I'd say, then, about this topic is that most of the time, your definition fights and arguments don't matter so much. What matters is your arguments about how we fix the environment, how we can reduce traffic, and how we can improve the convenience to people and their ease of getting around the city. That's what the debate is actually about.

So don't befuddle yourself, worrying about this detail too much. I just hope that this has given you a few finer points to consider when crafting a definition and when responding to one. So thanks for listening, guys. And I hope you have a wonderful day.