PRESENTER: Kayh ngalp ngitha mura, which in my language means good day, everyone. My name is Zipporah Corser-Anu , and I'm a proud Torres Straight Islander woman from Saibai Island in the Torres Strait. It gives me great pleasure to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we stand.

We pay our respects to the elders, past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people present today. The stars are our totemic spirits. May the stars shine bright wherever you are and guide you all.

GRACE RYAN: Hi. My name is Grace Ryan from Port Hacking High School located on the traditional land of the Dharawal people.

ALYSSA CHONG: My name is Alyssa Chong from Ascham School on the traditional land of the Cadigal people of the Eora Nation. It is upon their ancestral lands that Ascham is built.

AVA DUPONT: Hi. My name is Ava Dupont from Wollongong High School of the Performing Arts on the traditional land of the Wodiwodi people of the Dharawal Nation.

PREETHIKA MATHAN: Hi. My name is Preethika from Santa Sabina on the traditional land of the Wangal people of the Eora Nation.

TASMIA ALI: Hi. My name is Tasmia from Baulkham Hills High School on the traditional land of the Darug people.

LANI TAYLOR: Hi. I'm Lani. I'm from Bulli High School, and our school is on the Wodiwodi, on the land of the Wodiwodi.

Hi. My name is Ethan Zhu. I'm speaking here today from the King's School North Parramatta built on the lands of the Darug people.

NIKKI HOLIS: Hello, participating students, teachers, and parents, and welcome to the 2020 Legacy Junior Public Speaking Awards held on Zoom across New South Wales. I'm Nikki Holis, the newly appointed president of Sydney Legacy, and it is great to welcome you all here today. My own experience in public speaking is little to none as you can tell, so I hope to learn from all of you.

I know that those here today come with an exceptionally high calibre of presentation and public speaking skills, and I look forward to seeing how each and every one of you progress through this project. I note that various schools from across the state are joining us, and I thank you for your hard work and dedication to being here. This year has been exceptionally hard with unprecedented conditions leading to us all meeting over Zoom today. You have all been through so much this year with COVID dramatically impacting your studies, and you should be extremely proud of the resilience and flexibility you have had to sustain to be here.

Legacy has a long tradition of supporting these public speaking awards. Nurturing the education and well-being of children is paramount to our organisation. Stemming back to World War I when a falling soldier said to his mate, look after the missus and kids for me. Looking after the kids is a pledge Legacy holds sacred.

As you enter to the awards, I encourage you to read the information in your programme about Legacy and do some further research about what legacy does in your own areas. As well as competitions such as these, volunteering and working with a charity organisation is a great way to boost your resume when you go for your first job out of school. So please make sure that if you do volunteer, you volunteer for Legacy.

It is a wonderful organisation, and we greatly appreciate your support today and in the future. I extend congratulations to each and every one of you for achieving this level of the awards, and I so look forward to following your journeys. Thank you.

LANI TAYLOR: Myopic vision doesn't just affect how we see physical things but how we see problems. When it comes to minority movements seeking equality, people who are myopic-visioned only see these movements as movements seeking special treatment. If only they could see past this to see the world through a wider lens. This view of the world can be clearly seen in recent times in the Black Lives Matter movement and the counter movement All Lives Matter as well as feminism and various groups that see this as an exclusion of men's rights.

Movements like these are often criticised for their exclusion of all groups. These myopic counter movements like anti-feminism and All Lives Matter are broadening the stakeholders but limiting the cause for equality. The question I pose is, how can we focus on minority rights without having counter movements from privileged groups? Some conservatives, who are broadly ill informed of the discrimination towards certain groups, have a problem with minority movements seeking equality.

Feminism and Black Lives Matter, for example, focus on women's rights and people of colour's rights. The focus of these groups are people discriminated against rather than everyone, and conservatives take this and bend it to suit their message. Take Black Lives Matter, for example. The name focuses on Black lives because of oppression of Black lives. All lives matter is what conservatives use to maintain the dominant power and control, but the problem is that not all lives are oppressed based on race.

See, many counter movements claim that equality should be about everyone rather than just the minorities. In fact, many movements like anti-feminism believe that feminism is the name given to women who want special treatment. This had created an image of feminism and Black Lives Matter alike that they're movements seeking special treatment rather than the reality of seeking equality. And on top of this, misleading and fake news shapes victims out of the privileged. This contributes to the tainted view of minority rights.

Anti-Black Lives Matter protesters, for example, claim that the violent protests arising from recent police shooting of Jacob Blake made them feel unsafe. Apart from being highly ironic, this victim shaping hijacks the move for minority rights and instead maintains the light on the privileged. This fake news, mainly spread by Donald Trump, the loudest voice of conservative right, creates fear amongst these conservative groups, which reinforces the violent stereotypes displayed upon minorities in the first place.

These conservative counter movements are right in saying that we need a more inclusive approach to equality, that will broaden equality to the wider community rather than just to specific minority groups, but not in the way that conservatives claim, ladies and gentlemen. It is through intersectionality that we can finally unite in a far more authentic, nuanced, and inclusive way to achieve equality. The premise of intersectionality revolves around the idea that minorities and their experiences overlap.

For example, a Black man will have a different experience to a Black woman, or a working class woman will have a different experience to a middle class woman, and so on. If we are to achieve equality, we need a level of activism for all disempowered groups and individuals whose social disadvantages go beyond just one group. For many people whose social disadvantage goes beyond just one group, intersectionality is a far more authentic way to achieve equality.

So in conservative counter movements, such as All That Matter, claim that minority movements should be about everyone, they are asking us to broaden the movement's inclusiveness, and intersectionality does just that. If we are to intersect experiences between the disempowered, broadening our attention to the wider community, we can take a greater shot at equality. Why? Because intersectionality focuses on the broader community, which appeals to the sense of camaraderie, equality, and inclusiveness as well as this.

We are intersecting social categorizations to apply to specific individuals and expanding minority movements and with it its influence. For many, many people whose social disadvantages go beyond just one group, intersectionality is a far more inclusive way to achieve equality. For example, Barack Obama had a middle class upbringing but faced oppression because of racial injustice, whereas George Floyd had a working class upbringing and also faced racial injustice.

Social media accounts, such as The Feminist, are starting to implement these ideas by posting about Black lives, class imbalance, and gender. Many more accounts are following their lead creating intersectional feminist accounts. If more and more is known about intersectionality, conservatives could widen their lens to more inclusive movements.

So we can learn from conservatives' appeal to include more than narrowly defined minorities instead of being faced with power seeking and divisive campaigns that spread tainted view of minority movements and slow down the drive for equality. We can turn the spotlight onto various minorities that intersect allowing us to maintain focus on the disadvantaged and broadening our attention to the vast community. We need a less myopic vision of the world and minority groups. We need the 2020 vision of intersectionality. Thank you.

ETHAN ZHU: Ladies and gentlemen, I have to be honest with you. I absolutely hate paper straws. I know it's not particularly PC of me, and they are better for the environment, but I just cannot stand their weird limp texture, which collapses into this unsound mush after barely two sips. And, look, I'll still drink from them, but I would much prefer never to have had to make this sacrifice.

It seems that whenever you have to do something good for the environment, something that might help us turn the tide against global warming, we are inevitably forced to make a sacrifice. And, sure, we've had some success in convincing people to accept the abomination that is the paper straw. We've mostly banned plastic bags, and keep-cups have become kind of trendy. But in the scheme of things, these are small sacrifices, even though it might not feel like it when your smoothie gets stuck halfway up that pathetic tube of paper.

But real progress in the fight against climate change is going to require bigger changes than the switch from plastic to paper straws and assumedly bigger sacrifices. The problem is people are a lot more hesitant to accept those. We've known about the challenge of global warming for decades now. I don't need to tell you how urgent action is. That's not what the speech is about.

Instead, I want to talk about how we can create a political environment that will make action on climate change actually possible because at the moment, environmental activists are preoccupied with convincing us that we need to make big changes, big sacrifices, if we're going to survive global warming. This form of activism brought on guilt and fear in order to convince us that it is worth giving up some comfort and convenience if we want to save the planet. And this approach might be effective when it comes to ditching plastic straws, but when we're asking people to sacrifice their jobs or their livelihoods, this narrative simply won't work.

Think about Australia's reliance on coal. Fossil fuel accounts for about 80% of Australia's energy needs, and we're the biggest exporter of coal worldwide. On top of this, the mining sector provides more than 200,000 jobs to the Australian economy. Now these are not statistics that you would usually associate with an argument in favour of climate action. You'd be more likely to hear them cited by conservative politicians seeking to downplay the severity of global warming.

But I think it is a mistake to ignore these realities when we talk about how to fight for a sustainable future because, yes, ending Australia's fossil fuel dependence is crucial, but we will not get there if we just demand self-righteously that people whose livelihoods depend on the mining sector sacrifice their ability to put food on the table. This is even more pertinent in the context of the climate in the economic crisis brought by coronavirus. It's not fair to ask people who are already struggling to sacrifice their job security for the environment.

That's why we need a new narrative around climate action, one that doesn't exploit fear and guilt to demand that working people sacrifice the standard of living but which looks at sustainability as an opportunity that could improve all of our lives. Take the example of the Green New Deal, the key environmental policy of Senator Bernie Sanders.

As a policy, it's pretty solid involving massive investment into sustainable infrastructure, transport, and jobs, but I think the narrative behind the Green New Deal is potentially even more powerful because it isn't about demanding that people give up something. It's a positive vision of a world of better, fairer, safer jobs with cleaner public spaces, cheaper transport, and economies that work for everyone. Instead of making us depressed about the inevitability of climate Armageddon, it gives us the permission to feel optimistic about the future.

Here in Australia, we need our own version of the Green New Deal. Rather than delaying the pursuit of climate action until we are economically healthy, we should see the current economic crisis as an opportunity to reimagine the new economy grounded in sustainability. We have the ability. A recent report by Ernst & Young found that a post-COVID stimulus programme that invests in clean energy would create three times as many jobs as a programme focused on fossil fuel. We just need people to know that working for this kind of future doesn't have to mean making unfair and untenable sacrifices.

The recent bushfires are devastating proof that climate change will force sacrifice upon us if we do not take dramatic action soon, but we will get nowhere if we ask people to sacrifice their livelihoods for a long-term goal that seems distant and intangible. Instead, we must think and talk about climate action as an opportunity to grow and prosper. And even though we might encounter some paper straws along the way, I think that's a goal that people will get behind.

ALYSSA CHONG: It has spread all over the world changing the way we think, act, and speak, but some have described it as a disease, a cancer, a virus encroaching upon our civil liberties. And, no, I'm not talking about the coronavirus. I'm talking about the negative portrayal of political correctness as an invisible enemy, but, for me, political correctness is about inclusivity. It's about acceptance and respect, but I'm concerned with how PC is being vilified and how the term is not functioning to make people truly aware of the impact of their words.

A few weeks ago, I was at a bus stop, and the woman next to me asked the dreaded question, so where are you from? And thinking of buses, I answered, Randwick. She then frowned and then repeated more aggressively, no, I meant where are you from? I struggled to find a way to tell her how I found her question quite inappropriate as she seemed to be implying I wasn't a true Australian. If I had said, hey, that's not politically correct, she would have become more enraged, and it wouldn't have changed her view.

So if raising political correctness doesn't change or prevent prejudice, then we need to go to a new level. PC needs to evolve. This woman's comment aside, the vast majority of Australians agree with the principles of equality and anti-discrimination, so why then did more than 2/3 of Australians in a recent ABC survey believe that political correctness has gone too far?

Didn't they know that while involving only minor behaviour change, it has given us a far more inclusive language? Didn't they know that it has taught us never to assume that all doctors are men like saying so what did the doctor say instead of so what did he say, never to assume that everyone is married, and not everyone's worldview is white, privileged, or even male? Is it because of free speech? I doubt it.

Excluding hate speech and defamation covered by anti-discrimination laws, free speech means we can't be silenced. It doesn't mean our words can't be criticised, or maybe they are proudly hiding behind the I'm not PC label. Some like Donald Trump and Alan Jones say the problem isn't the opinions they express. Rather, the problem is with PC culture. They shift the blame, and they get away with it.

And that's why I think we need to move beyond PC, which is currently perceived as silencing and censoring and can even be used to defend discrimination. We need a new level, a new way of thinking, a new term, and that's what I have dubbed LT, let's talk. LT is about shifting our focus to what we can improve instead of what divides. It's about opening up the conversation no matter what, and that's how I think we can truly promote and inclusivity, acceptance, and respect. Let's talk and persuade, not silence and condemn.

To achieve this, social media plays a massive role in fostering LT. Social media companies need to use technologies to detect discriminatory statements and provide a link to verified information. Twitter has even started to do this on comments made by Trump, much to his outrage as shown by the still ongoing postal vote controversy. What's great about this is that Twitter didn't just delete his post, nor did they simply comment that's false, or that's not PC. Instead, they gave reliable facts opening the discussion.

Schools can also promote LT. Schools can talk about the emotional hurt and damage discrimination and marginalisation can cause such as when my school had a purple day to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. If schools promote LT instead of shutting down conversations because they're not PC, this will only make students more informed.

And finally, you and I can make a real impact by encouraging respectful conversations, by not saying to the woman at the bus stop, that's not PC. And instead saying, I was born and raised in Sydney. If you were asking about my cultural heritage, that's Chinese. Tell me about your cultural heritage.

Words are powerful. Conversations must be had. We have to move from PC to LT. Let's talk.

PREETHIKA MATHAN: My GP has gone through a lot of health scares with me. There was atypical pneumonia. Yes, it's a thing. There was B-typical pneumonia, which, yes, is also a thing, two twisted kneecaps, whooping cough, appendicitis, and probably more that I'm forgetting to mention. So you can imagine his pure joy when I walked into his office with yet another thing to report.

For the last few weeks, my period had been excruciatingly painful. Luckily, my doctor immediately reassured me that I just had bad period cramps and prescribed some hormonal contraceptive pills to ease them. The pain went away immediately, and I could go about my daily business again. That is until the pain came back, and the pills stopped having any effect.

When I went back to see my doctor, he just said I had particularly painful periods and needed to increase my dosage. So I trusted my doctor's judgement. His approach to the whole situation had begun to seem a little evasive. I was getting lots of medication but no answers, and it seems I'm not alone.

Endometriosis is the most common gynaecological condition to date and affects 10% of women worldwide. It's a condition that causes tissue to grow outside the uteri cavity or, in simpler words, causes sufferers to have extremely painful and often debilitating periods. Currently, according to the Institute of Health and Welfare, it takes seven years to get a diagnosis for, and according to a study by Oxford Academics, 75% of sufferers are initially misdiagnosed as having bad period pain.

But how does this happen? Endometriosis is a medical condition. So how can medical professionals continue to misdiagnose it? Well, endometriosis affects the same amount of people as diabetes. It receives barely 5% of the funding that diabetes does.

As a result, there is no known cure, so as described in a study by Dr. Kate Young, a professor at Monash University, rather than acknowledge the limitations of medical knowledge, gynaecologists and doctors prefer not to burden patients with the knowledge that they may have an incurable condition and feed into what they perceive to be their patients' hysteria complex or tendency to overreact, a perception that has been perpetuated by a medical system that was designed by men for men. Instead, doctors pump women full of hormonal contraceptives to mask and diminish whatever symptoms of endometriosis they find. Sufferers are told it's just bad period pain and are dismissed with a higher dosage of pills.

And this doesn't just happen with endometriosis. Many other gynaecological conditions like adenomyosis and ovarian cysts face the same thing. A whole industry has been built on medicating women. In fact, the global contraceptive pill market, the pills prescribed to soothe conditions like endometriosis and the pills that were prescribed to me, is set to be worth $22 billion by 2023.

But what happens when women's bodies build up a resistance like mine did? What happens when the prescription pad runs out? To all the women and girls in this Zoom call, let my experience teach you a lesson. Your doctor will rarely investigate any pains in or near your uterus because they know that if it's endometriosis, they cannot cure it. So you have to stand your ground.

Furthermore, political parties love to be seen fighting for issues like men's mental health and global warming, and while this is undeniably important, gynaecological research and funding into gynaecological research is equally important. It is up to us to lobby for more funding into gynaecology research and, in doing so, show both the government and our political parties that this is a budget spend we are actively supporting. The more we talk about this issue, no matter how uncomfortable it is, the more comfortable we make it for both men and women to join this conversation. And by doing this, more politicians, professionals, and researchers are more likely to get behind it. Just because gynaecological conditions are women's problems doesn't mean they should just be women's problems.

TASMIA ALI: You're scrolling through Instagram or Facebook, and you come across an adorable baby otter jumping into a cold pond to join his mother. You interact with the post liking it, maybe sharing it with some of your friends. And not even 30 seconds later, you come across a video of another cute baby animal, a seal, and so you do the same thing, interacting and scrolling. In not even half an hour, your feed has become entirely adorable baby animals. These are caused by algorithms in social media that only show you what you seem to like to see forming echo chambers.

Echo chambers reinforce and echo the beliefs and ideas that you previously had preventing you from exploring other perspectives. Social media is permanent in almost every aspect of our lives. Its influence on us collectively and individually is addictive, and this is exactly how. These algorithms are cleverly coded and enhanced in order to make your social media experience more enjoyable, relatable, and engaging.

Now let's take this into a less wholesome, more serious context for a minute. Say someone who was previously prejudiced against people of colour, they began to associate with accounts and other people online who had a similar mindset spreading information that only fuels their hatred towards these people. The worst part about this is that almost 80% of this information is going to be false with biassed data and statistics. These algorithms do the work, and soon they're reinforcing the ideas and beliefs that they previously had with untrue information.

Consequences of this, misinformed people developing a close-minded perspective from what they are constantly reinforcing every day. The clearest examples of what sorts of people echo chambers are capable of creating are Flat Earthers. Flat Earthers used to base their beliefs primarily on what is known as the Zetetic method in which is an alternative to the scientific method in which sensory observations are what theories are based on. This has changed in modern society, and here's how echo chambers are linked to it.

In 2004, the Flat Earth Society was resurrected by a man named Samuel Shenton on the basis of discussions occurring in an online forum officially relaunching it in 2009. The creation of more internet algorithms and ways of reinforcing misinformation about these beliefs has led to the closed mindedness of most Flat Earthers that we hear from today. An example of the amount of certainty that these people have in their beliefs that are reinforced by other people with the same beliefs is Mike Hughes.

Hughes passed away earlier in February this year while piloting a homemade rocket in a reckless and unprofessional attempt to prove that the Earth was, indeed, flat. Let's go back to the beginning of how it came to all of this. Someone who believes that the Earth was flat interacted with other posts that said that the Earth was flat and connected with other people who believed that the Earth was flat. As ridiculous as this sounds, it is, in fact, the reality even outside of this context.

There are almost 4 billion people on social media, each one of them interacting and being affected by these algorithms constantly spreading and reinforcing this information. It might be amusing to think about people who believed that the moon landing never happened or think that people who believe vaccines cause developmental diseases are amusing, but when this begins to reflect on race, on religion, and on people's general safety and well-being, the risks are just too much to ignore. It's terrifying the results that echo chambers are capable of producing, but the matter of fact is a few swipes more is all it takes to escape these bubbles of despair.

If echo chambers engage us with what we'd like to see, then the solution is simple, engage with what would not normally engage with. Intentionally seek out to inform yourself about other perspectives, whether it be politically, your passions, or even just a topic that you're keen about. If you consider yourself to be a more liberal person, engage yourself with conservative perspectives. If you're really interested in traditional art, then engage with digital art.

I'm not saying that you need to support or believe any ideas that you're uncomfortable with or you should change the morals and values that you stand by, but what's important is that you understand the perspective that other parties come from and keep an open mind about it. It's time to be educated about these dangers that are prominent in social media. Understand them and take action. As ethical as you think your beliefs are, as sure as you are of them, there's never any harm in exploring other perspectives and understanding them. After all, echo chambers may give you what you like to hear, but is what you like to hear really what you need?

AARON RUCINSKI: I was eight years old in the playground at school when I heard my friends raving about some book, about some wizard named Harry Potter. Naturally, I sprinted home and begged my mum to get the books, and it didn't take long for me to become completely obsessed. Now I'm almost jealous of the people older than me who got to experience every book as a new release revelling in the anticipation of a new story. But these days, the Harry Potter franchise seems to spit out a new spin off every single week whether it's another movie, a book, or a play.

I can't help but notice that the sheer amount of new content is undermining the magic of the Potter universe. And it's not just 'Harry Potter.' From 'Star Wars' through Marvel to 'James Bond,' we're living in an era of adaptations. Our entertainment landscape is dominated by a culture of copying, which prioritises familiar, nostalgic content of new ideas. And even though I like a superhero movie as much as the next person, I think we need to question this culture of copying.

Of course, adaptations aren't all that bad. In fact, they can provide fascinating opportunities to challenge the original. A great example of this is the 2016 adaptation of 'Ghostbusters,' which reinterpreted the original through a feminist lens. But my concern is that the art sector has limited resources, and every time money and time is invested into an adaptation, it's not being invested into original material.

Now this is particularly problematic here in Australia where the arts sector is struggling for survival. Since its election 2013, the current government has been undermining the arts in Australia. It began with numerous funding cuts. The Department of Arts and Communications being dissolved into the Department of Transport. Even during COVID-19, artists were functionally excluded from programmes like JobKeeper. On top of this, it's estimated that by 2022, the government will have stripped the ABC, a backbone of the Australian media, of close to $1 billion.

So things are looking pretty bad for Australian artists, but how does this compare to the money making adaptation franchises of Marvel, 'Star Wars,' and 'Harry Potter?' Well, it all comes down to what we think the purpose of art should be. If we believed that art is only for entertainment, then, sure, let's leave it to Disney and Netflix. We'll never run out of things to watch. But if we believe that art has some deeper purpose to make us think critically, question assumptions, and to encourage creativity, we should resist a world where large Hollywood corporations have a monopoly on art.

And because new independent art without new independent art, we miss out on a lot of the important stories and diverse perspectives resulting in a world completely reliant on other people's ideas. But it hasn't always been this way. Back in the 1970s and '80s, the government started making large, meaningful contributions into Australian art. Their financial support facilitated the creation of classics like 'Gallipoli,' 'Rabbit-Proof Fence,' and 'Muriel's Wedding.'

Not only did these films give a platform to new directors, writers, and actors, they've come to represent Australian culture, and they've started important conversations about war, about the stolen generation, and about mental health, conversations that wouldn't have been started by another 'Star Wars' movie. But today's governments doesn't seem interested in these types of conversations. In July, Scott Morrison announced $400 million of government funding for foreign filmmakers, who will largely hail from Hollywood to come and film in Australia.

But at the same time, he only promised an eighth of that amount for original Australian filmmakers. Clearly, original Australian stories aren't as important to ScoMo as another 'Thor,' or 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie. But as the art sector flounders in Australia today, do we have any hope for the future? The reality is it's up to us.

The government will only change this attitude towards the arts if every voting citizen makes it clear that they care. We need to pressure the government to invest meaningfully in the arts through better funding of the ABC, Film Australia, and live theatre across the country. We shouldn't treat art as a luxury that we can only afford during a budget surplus but rather an investment in both our economy and our culture because it's really quite simple.

A culture of copying isn't creative. It doesn't encourage new stories or diverse perspectives. So in the spirit of the original 'Harry Potter,' let's invest into a magical future, one where we reward originality, embrace creativity, and foster creativity in all Australian. Thank you.

AVA DUPONT: The other day when my mother was driving me to the dentist, she was eating an apple as she drive, which I am sure is against the road rules. So she rolls down my window on the passenger side using the automatic switch and tosses her apple core, almost hitting me in the face with it. Whoops. Sorry, she says. I had to use your window because there's bush on your side and I didn't want to get on the road as it's dangerous if an animal comes out to get it.

I'm glad she was at least aiming away from the road, but she shouldn't be aiming her apple core anywhere but the compost bin at home. Sometimes I feel like I'm the adult. Then she blurts out it's not litter. It's organic, and it's good for the environment. It's food for the animals, and it's biodegradable.

I wondered about that. Would it really biodegrade? Would it just decompose into the earth? So I did some googling and discovered that it could take up to two months for apples cores to biodegrade out in the natural environment. Banana peels can take up to two years.

It's not good for the environment. And it's not good for the native animals, and yet people all over the world seem to think it's OK to throw your organic waste into nature. How much harm could a harmless apple core create you may ask? Well, actually, a lot. You know the apple core and seeds contain a small amount of cyanide in them. So an unsuspecting animal like a lizard, or possum, or, heaven forbid, your dog were to chew on it, it could give them a very sore tummy and make them sick.

It's also not aesthetically pleasing to stumble across rotting organic waste. Imagine this. You hike up a beautiful mountain and reach the peak only to find it stinky with rotting banana peels. It's actually a big issue in some countries like at Scotland's Ben Nevis, a popular mountain that hikers love. The peak is littered with hundreds of banana peels. The locals have had to intervene to stop it, and a major cleanup took place.

A lot of people quite genuinely think that because a banana, or orange, or apple, or whatever is natural, it will just decompose into the environment and everything will be right as rain, but that's not the case. You know, as fruit starts to biodegrade, it produces a gas called methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas emission. It's about 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide. OK, I get that organic waste doesn't produce as much methane as the fossil fuel industry, which is one of the biggest contributors to climate change and global warming, but everything counts. Everything adds up in the end.

But if rotting organic waste produces methane, then why aren't we using that to create powered electricity? We can harness the energy of the compost just like we harnessed sun, water, and wind energy. Organic waste has huge untapped potential to provide clean energy around the world.

You know, In some countries like Denmark and Sweden it's illegal to throw out food waste. In fact, Sweden recently started to tap into the power of organic waste to harvest the methane for energy instead of burning coal or gas. They have power plants that burn organic waste, which capture the methane emissions and make renewable energy. These power plants provide heat during the cold months for the country's 10 million residents.

Farmers in the US are also doing the same. Why aren't we doing this in Australia? We should make it illegal to chuck out food waste, which ends up in our red bins and in landfills. Sweden gives tax credits to residents who deposit their organic waste into special bins. We could introduce a similar system here.

If people knew they could save on electricity bills, they'd be saving all their organic waste. An apple a day could keep the electricity bill at bay. So next time you see your mum, or dad, or whoever mindlessly throw their apple core out the car window or into nature, speak up and tell them about the power of organic waste. Give them some juicy facts to chew on.

Our earth is being destroyed by the fossil fuel industry, so we need to look all the possible renewables. We need to act now. We need to make haste with waste. Thank you.

GRACE RYAN: I don't know about you, but I, for one, am tired of hearing about international border closures and travel restrictions. You see, I was eagerly anticipating a family trip to Canada this year, but like many other things, COVID-19 put a stop to that. I was really disappointed, but then I realised international border closures made more than just missing out on the holidays.

For some people, international border closures are a matter of life or death. How do you flee your country in order to survive when your only escape path is cut off? Regardless of your viewpoint on refugees and asylum seekers, the fact is that these people are even more vulnerable during the coronavirus. These people are the forgotten victims of 2020.

The global refugee system is built around people's ability to leave their country and seek asylum in another. However, an individual cannot be considered as a refugee until they have crossed an international border, and when according to the UN, at least 167 out of all 195 nations have either partially or fully closed their borders during the pandemic, what does this mean for our most endangered? Well, it means that asylum seekers become even more defenceless. It means that the limited support for this community from international governments in a normal year lessens even further.

This issue is also having a significant impact on refugees already settled in their new nations on a physical, mental, and economic level. When examining the physical threat of COVID-19 for refugees, you only have to look as far as our nation, where according to the 'Academic Journal,' the conversation around 1,400 refugees are in immigration facilities. Currently, the number of incoming detainees is greater than those leaving the facilities due to visa cancellations and unlawful refugees being unable to return to their original countries.

With these rising numbers making it harder for detainees to social distance and follow protocols, it is only a matter of time before an outbreak. Let's look at a known example, the Tamil family. While they await the court decision on their fate, you would think that they were at least safe from COVID-19 being the only family isolated on Christmas Island. This is no longer the case with the Australian Border Force temporarily moving unlawful non-citizens to Christmas Island during the pandemic. So where does this leave the Tamil family?

It leaves them thousands of kilometres away from specialist medical care, unsafe, and now at risk of catching the virus. Similar mistreatment has already occurred in the Bangladesh camps. Tragically, 277 Rohingya refugees have caught the virus. Eight have died. This should be an immediate red flag for our nation's leaders.

From a financial viewpoint, COVID-19 is impacting many refugees in Australia working in the hospitality and small business sector. The ABC projects that at least 18,807 refugees on temporary visas in the sector will lose their jobs this year alone. And when it comes to mental health, refugees have suffered severely due to existing disorders such as PTSD and anxiety from past experiences being heightened in this unprecedented time.

So how does our compassionate and multicultural nation react? Well, we don't follow the lead of the UK, who've released hundreds of people from detention since the pandemic began potentially saving lives. We ignore the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases, who have stated that the situation with refugees is exacerbating a public health crisis. And saddest of all, we ignore the pleas for help from people who were looking to start a new life in our country.

So what can we do in Australia to ease the heavy burden? It is imperative that sufficient medical resources are available at immigration centres with widespread testing and tracing accessible for refugees and asylum seekers. From a financial viewpoint, we need to create an immediate safety net for refugees who are currently excluded from government assistance programmes. To ensure that these people are not forced into destitution, we need to extend JobSeeker and JobKeeper to people on bridging and temporary visas who are ineligible for income support.

On a positive note, these financial solutions have been outlined in a letter to Scott Morrison, titled Nobody Left Behind, which has already been signed by at least 200 organisations. Finally, we need to introduce specialised mental health services to refugees and asylum seekers overwhelmed by coronavirus due to past trauma, poverty, or legal exclusions. I thought 2020 was hard for me. Apart from missing out on my trip to Canada, both my parents lost their jobs, and my extracurricular activities were cancelled.

That was until I realised the situation of these vulnerable people, the newly resettled children whose parents have also lost their jobs, but unlike me, have poor housing, are overcrowded, and are not eligible for financial and medical support simply because of their global status. To all, I say coronavirus doesn't discriminate. Why should you?

LANI TAYLOR: It's always nice to trick a friend, or make them believe some funny fake information, or just having a joke with them, you know, playing around, funny business, making them believe something that's not true. But as much as this can be fun, it can also have extremely bad consequences. I can think of a million real world examples.

Think about how many memes have been made out of Donald Trump. You know, oh, he wants to build a wall. Oh, I won the election. The thing about QAnon, and it being spread, and how funny the funny business people think it is spreading it around how funny it is to look at all these people with such fake information. But this isn't always clear for a lot of people, and spreading this information, as much as it could be funny business for you, has huge consequences for people who aren't as informed and can't tell the difference between fake news and real news.

See, when people spread this funny business, they're actually causing huge consequences for people who believe this and can have huge impact on people with race, gender because this information can be sexist, racist, homophobic, and people can just think it's funny because it's so unbelievable. But not all people are able to distinguish this information. And in recent times, you can see how the information of Donald Trump winning the election was quickly spread, and all his supporters who believed this suddenly went out in huge Trump rallies. They had clashes, huge street protests, and this was a huge disaster because it spread news that people thought was funny business.

And why is this bad? Because this caused huge amounts of violence, hate, and it undermines the Democratic system we have in place because people are believing such fake information, which can heavily influence elections and how people vote. This is also bad because they're role models, they're in the spotlight, and people look up to them. This heavily impacts future generations.

So what's the solution? We need to teach kids what credible sources are like the ABC, the Guardian, or the 'New York Times.' We need to paint the right picture of media. Not everything that you see is real. We need to teach kids this at a young age so they can be prepared.

We need to quickly make sure that people don't think it's funny business to spread this information. We need to fix this at a young age. Thank you.

ETHAN ZHU: Ladies and gentlemen, the internet and the development of these technologies has clearly done a lot of good things. Personally, I use Google all the time obviously. I have an Instagram account and all of these social media sites, for example, on the internet. And the internet is so important to me and the digital world.

I use it for school, and it's also a good pastime occasionally. And life simply wouldn't be the same without the internet. But increasingly, I worry that the companies that I trust with my data and information are up to some funny business. Privacy online has been a growing concern recently, and there have been no shortage of movements and organisations trying to advocate for improved online privacy and improved awareness.

It's not just data that's being trusted with social media companies. For example, Facebook has been involved with the Cambridge Analytica scandal a while ago, where they sold data for political, to people that were politically motivated. But it's not just that. It's also governments.

For example, there has been a clear increase in cyber-attacks towards the Australian people and the Australian government, such as recently this year, 180,000 Service New South Wales employees had their data breached. And it is clear that our privacy is being placed at risk. And with an increase in the amount of information that we put online, this issue is only going to worsen.

But it's not just all funny business. For example, the South Korean government, in response to COVID, released a tracking application, and it has saved many lives helping experts and officials work towards saving lives within the COVID pandemic. And this is serious business, and it's important that we are able to distinguish between the two.

But with the reputational damage that has occurred without privacy online, it's understandable that people are concerned about this funny business. So what should we do about this? Well, in Australia, one of the clear issues is outdated laws. We have no clear right to privacy in Australia. So when our government, for example, tried to introduce the COVIDSafe app, the public reaction made it clear that there was a mistrust, that people were worried that the government was up to some funny business.

But we shouldn't just reject this technology altogether. Instead, we should try to fix our laws, establishing a clear right to privacy, setting boundaries for international companies such as TikTok when they operate in Australia, and preventing government abuse through clear laws. By fixing outdated laws, we can ensure we continue to enjoy the benefits of our technology but making sure there's no funny business. Thank you.

ALYSSA CHONG: A popular activity my friends at school participate is in the yearly trip to Vietnam, and it appears to be a wonderful opportunity where they teach English and donate stationery, a trip of a lifetime if I'm being honest. But in reality, the funny business and exploitative nature of this business occurring under the surface is a darker reality. This funny and deceitful business is being fueled by orphanage trafficking, which relies on volunteers from developed countries to volunteer at these orphanages.

In truth, many of these orphans actually have families but who sell their children into these orphanages because they cannot afford the financial strain. In fact, the donations from these volunteers are sold. The toys and stationery is also sold, all of which lines the pockets of the orphanage directors. In fact, in some extreme cases, orphans are abused and starved to appear to look to open the hearts of the volunteers because if you open a heart, you open wallets.

The solution to overcoming this funny business that not everyone knows about is to acknowledge our part in fueling this industry, awareness campaigns, such as things in the school syllabus, educating students about this, making sure schools don't actually have trips that fuel this industry. We also need to donate to charities that keep families together, such as the Cambodian Children's Trust, which was deliberately created to avoid parents having to send their children into orphanages where they experience horrendous situations. The CCT offers families a bicycle so their kids can go to school, 50 kilogrammes of rice a month, which may seem small to us, but it keeps families together and saves lives. We need to be informed, we need to be educated, and we need to be aware so that we can ensure that there is no funny business.

PREETHIKA MATHAN: 1 in 200 people are homeless in Australia. Thankfully, in 2008, the Australian government committed to halve national homelessness by 2020. We are now less than two months away from the end of 2020, and yet homelessness has grown by 11%.

Now I don't know about you, but, to me, this sounds like pretty funny business. And it makes me wonder how this could happen in the highest office of our nation. The government has spent the last five years revamping its policies in its bid to cut costs, and it seems to have worked with a $7 billion budget surplus. But the indirect cost of these funny business savings has been homelessness.

Social security policy changes are the perfect example of this. Eligibility criteria have been tightened so many people who previously received welfare, like refugees or the unemployed, are no longer able to access it easily. While this made it cheaper for the government, it left these people without an income stream, ultimately forcing them into homelessness.

The revamped criminal justice policy systems follow a similar storyline. It increased prison discharge rates and decreased post-prison support thus saving the government running costs thus saving governments the running cost of prisons. But with a large number of prisoners being discharged without reintegration support, many fell into unemployment, housing insecurity, and thus homelessness.

During the coronavirus pandemic, this homelessness has been exacerbated. Sometimes I think that homelessness isn't my problem, but predictions suggest the funny business surrounding homelessness will come to affect all of our business. Homelessness in Millennials and Generation Z, which I am a part of, is set to reach record numbers in line with the rapidly rising cost of living and the impending coronavirus recession, so many of us will either know someone who is homeless or be homeless ourselves.

The government has a $7 billion budget surplus earned by its funny business cutting costs from those who need them the most. It needs to funnel this budget surplus back into the system as incentives for the private rental sector to create low cost homes and funding to reinvest in our dwindling social and affordable housing system. Homelessness is not funny business, but funny business will increase homelessness.

Thankfully, the government has pushed people into homeless through its funding business, so it can pull them out of homelessness if we, the public, demand it and are willing to make sacrifices for it. We have to understand that the budget surplus is not forever, but we can use it to save those whose housing isn't forever. Thank you.

TASMIA ALI: As a kid, I hated not sticking to the rules. I was afraid that any sort of funny business would get me grounded for life or detention at school. Whether it was not completing my homework or talking during class, I was scared of not doing anything incorrectly. Little did I know about what was to develop on social media over the years.

Now on especially on Twitter, we have cancel culture, which prevents people from running from their mistakes and puts celebrities on the spot for mistakes that they made years ago failing to acknowledge whether they've apologised or grown from those actions already. It doesn't allow people to find that what they've done is wrong and prevent those actions from happening immediately, instead criticising them for making the mistake that they made ages ago.

This negative perspective that we have is toxic and doesn't allow room for growth. An example is when a few K-pop idols were caught at a restaurant during COVID-19. People said that they weren't following social distance laws, which caused a majority of the K-pop community to criticise them. When we actually learned about what had happened, we realised that they had met up a week before social media social distancing laws were enforced, and they were actually following the rules the whole time.

Rather than learning the whole story, we tend to criticise celebrities and have developed this cancel culture without fully understanding what's going on. Rather than cancelling them, we need to understand what they've done and whether they've actually done their homework on the mistakes that they've made. We need to educate them and tell them that what they've done is wrong rather than making out a verdict immediately.

Now I do try to avoid any funny business still and finish my homework on time. I do try and educate myself every time I make a slip up. And I acknowledge that what I've done is wrong, and I learn from those mistakes. Rather than criticising, we need to acknowledge the mistakes that have been made, and we need to understand before taking to destroying people's careers immediately.

AARON RUCINSKI: Now COVID has changed a lot of things about our society. However, one of the less talked about is the moving to an increasingly cashless society. I, for one, have been using it to leverage my parents to convince to get me credit a debit card, which has been an ambition of mine for years. Now forget the inconvenience of parents not being able to give their kids pocket money or not being able to sell some of your unwanted junk for a bit of cash in return. There are much larger issues at stake for our most vulnerable populations when considering this outlandish idea of going cashless like you'll see in all our favourite sci-fi movies, which could be seen as funny business.

Now, cash has gotten a bad rep, but for many, it's the only accessible option. The Australian Banking Association said that there are more than 500,000 people within our society who actively use a passbook account or transaction account with no linked debit card. Examples of this can be seen in people who live in possibly remote or rural areas who often lack access to financial sources such as ATMs.

Now think of homeless Australians, many who already rely on the occasional charity from someone walking down the street are now less likely to receive this but are now finding it increasingly difficult to spend this money in increasing amount of institutions. Now also think of people in abusive relationships. For many, relying on cash is the only way to have any sort of sense of financial independence from their controlling partners.

And there are policy solutions to each of these, but we shouldn't even think about this funny business of going cashless in the future without until we've ensured that it wouldn't disproportionately affect our most vulnerable people within society. People in rural areas shouldn't have to, should have access to their own hard-worked money. Homeless people shouldn't need to rely on charitable donations from random people on the street, and people in abusive relationships shouldn't have to feel the need to stash their money under the bed to have any source of financial freedom.

So what's the solution? Unfortunately, this isn't a conversation that's being had amongst our decision makers here in Australia. However, until we are 100% sure that we can enjoy the benefits of a cashless society and minimise the risk posed against us, we are [inaudible] of this funny business. We should keep cash alive. Thank you.

AVA DUPONT: I remember the day I came home and told my parents I didn't want to eat meat anymore, that I wanted to become vegan. My dad had a slow-cooked pork in the oven that had been cooking for six hours. He's a Viking and loves his meat. He looked at me like a stunned mullet. He looked like I'd electrocuted him just like the pig would have been.

It was like I was an alien not his Viking daughter. My mum then chuckled and said, hey, but you can't go vegan. You're low in iron. You need to eat meat.

But here's the thing. We don't need to eat meat. We choose to eat meat. We can get iron from many other things such as legumes, beans, vegetables. We need to put an end to this funny business and start looking after the environment and cutting back on our meat consumption.

Meat has been proven to lead to many diseases, cancers, and other things. Some say that if the world was vegan, we wouldn't have coronavirus. I also recently read that I also recently read in the newspaper that the biggest threat to climate change isn't actually coal. It's animal agriculture. It's responsible for destroying up to 91% of the Amazon rainforest.

We need to stop this funny business and start having compassion for the animals that are slaughtered, and it will also benefit our health greatly. If you're like my dad and you just can't live without meat, then you can at least cut back because moderation is key. We need to stop this funny business and start showing compassion for the environment and the animals that are slaughtered and tortured. So let's start having compassion and stop this funny business because let's face it. Nothing tastes better than compassion.

GRACE RYAN: Today whilst I am delivering a speech and competing in this competition, my school is celebrating and acknowledging White Ribbon Day. This is a day where we are acknowledging Australia's severe issues surrounding domestic violence against women, an issue which has become even more prominent and apparent during this lockdown period of COVID-19. We need to understand that one in five Australian women have experienced domestic violence from a former or current partner at some point in their lives, and the harsh reality is that one woman a week dies because of domestic violence.

It is important for us, as a society, to understand if a woman is showing signs of funny business that there is a greater issue at hand. Because we have been locked down due to COVID, there has been an 85% increase in the complexity of client cases. And so it is important for us to look at a woman's situation and if she is showing any signs, like physical, or mental, a poor mental state, for us to realise that this funny business may be actually a greater issue, and she may be someone who is locked in this hard situation experiencing domestic violence, which has been heightened because of COVID-19 and women literally not being able to escape their violent perpetrators in this time period.

So the reason that these cases complexity have increased during COVID is because there has been unemployment both for the women living in these situations. They might be financially dependent on their violent perpetrator. Their violent perpetrator might have experienced unemployment or financial issues themselves leading to these signs of funny business and asked to actually realise that they are going through these issues.

So what can we do to help this issue? Well, we are all going through hard times, so we need to look to see if a woman is showing any signs of funny business. And we need to raise awareness on this issue and help them if they do by referring them to organisations such as the help line or White Ribbon Day to increase the awareness on this issue. There needs to be funding for this issue because if it wasn't already bad before COVID, it is now definitely heightened in this time where women literally have nowhere else to go to.

We need localised places because of lockdown for women to go to. 2020 has really sucked for us all. We need to know if these women are experiencing funny business if there is a greater issue at hand. Thank you.

JUSIN LAI: So another year, another Legacy Final, but this year was exceptional in many regards. Firstly, because it took place entirely online and, secondly, because despite all the challenges that every single speaker had to overcome to get here, they managed to deliver some of the most amazing speeches that we've heard so far. So, again, I know this sounds a little trite, but the work that you guys have done here is amazing. And you guys deserve another round of applause because the work you've done is absolutely exceptional.

In terms of how this OA is going to go, I'm going to start with some general comments and some general feedback. And I'm going to combine the tips for both impromptus and prepareds because we thought, as an adjudicating panel, that they actually just sort of overlapped, so we're going to talk about both of them more collectively and speech writing tips in general. Then we're going to go into the runner up and the winner, and we're going to sort of delay it and make it very suspenseful because that is what I had to go through. That's something Charlie had to go through. We're going to make you go through it as well.

So in terms of the prepared feedback, we, as an adjudication panel, found that we really loved the sort of creative framing that all speakers engaged with in looking at the ways of exploring the issues. They looked at really interesting perspectives in terms of understanding issues that may have already been quite familiar in the global scope of things or the national scope of things but really put a twist on it and tried to make themselves stand out in terms of what they had to offer. We thought that was exceptional.

We thought that, secondly, the use of personal angles was a really exceptional sort of speech writing thing, and that really demonstrated an ability to empathise and understand the topics that the speakers were dealing with. We thought that was a great thing that all speakers engaged with. And finally, we thought that in the most strange and most upsetting year that has ever really been in recent memory, we thought that all speakers had not only really ambitious and interesting ideas but were really topical in the way that they approached things.

So both the prepared and both the impromptu were full of these really topical niche ideas that would have only occurred in 2020, and that shows a great engagement with what's happening right now and a great consciousness in terms of what people are thinking about, so we thought that was an exceptional job that all speakers did. In terms of what we thought all speakers could maybe prove on, we would say that thinking a little bit about a call to action would have been a greater sort of focus for all of these speeches because we thought that whilst a lot of these speeches were incredibly sophisticated in terms of proving maybe an issue, the way that they all ended up sort of focusing on what individuals like ourselves or people in the audience could do with regards to maybe making that solution a reality or making a problem better were a little bit conceptual. And they sort of didn't necessarily apply, the adjudication panel thought, to what people did in the real world.

And so maybe for future speeches, a greater focus on grounded and realistic steps that people could achieve, but also engaging with a realistic portrait of what issues might have looked like, and maybe the practicalities of dealing with problems that might not be so easy to get over was something that we thought would have been a great thing to add to all of the speeches. And, secondly, we thought that in terms of some of the examples that speeches used, the best speeches used really interesting and engaging examples, things that this adjudication panel genuinely hadn't considered and things that we thought were great additions to the general knowledge and the general contribution that general issue had in terms of the debate that it was going or the conversation that it was currently undergoing. We thought that some of the speeches maybe didn't have the most interesting examples, the most engaging examples, and some of the other speeches sort of put their heads just a bit over the line.

So now we get onto the fun business, the funny business, ha-ha. We'll now sort of talk about the winner and the runner up, and we're going to declared the winner of this competition. Let's start with the runner up.

So this runner up, this speaker, in terms of their prepared speech was really, I think, able to discuss their topic with a great niche and a great sort of empathetic perspective. They were able to navigate personal sort of steps and sort of considerations with a really interesting perspective on what was to the adjudication panel a generally well-worn topic, a topic that has gained a lot of treatment in most people's minds and so forth. The ability to find a sort of an interesting angle and looking at the way in which people were able to engage and think about it but also promote a way for us to get out of that problem was a really interesting and engaging point.

However, we do think that maybe this topic could have been a little bit more original in terms of conception. That was the only sort of slight downfall we thought was plaguing a really, really excellent prepared speech. But this impromptu that speech delivered the speaker delivered was the best out of the bunch we thought. We thought that was really engaged with a topic that we declared of funny business. We thought that in terms of the structure, it was particularly standout.

It talked about not just the idea of funny business but this idea of serious business as well. Things that might also be able to be done and the issues that would arise when funny and serious businesses end up clashing. So I thought, we thought as an adjudication panel, that use of contrast was really sophisticated. So with a prepared speech about plastic straws and optimistic sustainability and an impromptu speech about the use of data privacy, the runner up for the Legacy Final in 2020 is Ethan Zhu.

Now on to the winner. It's always fun to talk about the winner. The winner, so in terms of their prepared, this speaker had an amazing focus, not just in terms of their personal side, not just in terms of their neurological analytical side, the argumentative side, and not just in terms of their statistical side. We thought that the balance that the speaker achieved between all three of those facets of public speaking was exceptional.

There was a strong opening of a personal focus, which was a really intimate and really sort of frank and honest discussion of their problems, and they talked a lot about a subject that this panel thought was incredibly original and one that generally had not been discussed due to societal discomfort, a topic which this speaker also engaged with in their speech. We thought that that was engaging, original, and in many ways sensational in many aspects. In terms of their impromptu, we thought that the speaker demonstrated a great link to the topic of funny business.

We thought that they also did a great sort of effort to link it to current issues and sort of the current issues plaguing 2020. We thought that this speaker I did enough here to really sort of demonstrate their knowledge and their understanding of the sensitive issues regarding the current COVID climate. So the winner of the Legacy Final for 2020 with a prepared speech about endometriosis and an impromptu speech about homelessness and government cuts is Preethika Mathan.

Yeah, so that's it from the adjudication panel. We thought, again, this is not only a incredibly hard competition but an incredibly hard competition in an incredibly hard time. You should put an asterisk in any event in 2020 that the fact that you achieved any of this in such a difficult year is an achievement in and of itself. You guys should be so proud of what you've done. This panel had the privilege of witnessing some amazing speeches, and we're all incredibly proud of the work that you've done.