TONY DAVEY: Hi, there. My name's Tony Davey. And I'm the speaking competition's assistant for the New South Wales Department of Education. That means my job is to help run stuff like New South Wales Debating and the Premier's Debating Challenge, as well as all of the speaking competitions and the public speaking events, like Multicultural Perspectives. And I'm one of the three people who's going to be talking to you about the Primary Schools State Debating Championships. Here's a couple of others.

EMILY: Hi, I'm Emily. I've been debating at a state and national level since high school. And now that I'm in uni, I continue to debate. And I also adjudicate now as well.

PAT: Hi, I'm Pat [inaudible]. I'm a national champion and world finalist debater and public speaker. And I am the second most experienced coach and adjudicator in the state of New South Wales after Tony.

TONY DAVEY: Great. So what is this? This is us watching the 2019 Primary Schools State Debating Championships together. And then after each speaker, you're going to hear from us about what we saw and what we thought.

So just a little bit of context for this debate, these are the two teams who won five regular rounds of debating and a semi-final at the end of a three-day overnight tournament at Collaroy. So they are obviously really, really nerdy. They picked up a lot along the way. And you shouldn't expect that every Premier's Debating Challenge debate will look anything like this. These are the very, very, very best representative teams in New South Wales at the very peak of their Primary School Debating forms. So we're going to watch the debate together. Yeah, who's next?

PAT: So one thing-- just to preface our comments over the course of this debate with-- is it's going to sound like we're being really harsh to these kids. And oftentimes, that's because we are. You should remember that we're criticising them, recognising first of all they're amongst the very top debaters in the state debating at a super high level in competition. And we're being harsh on them just so you can say that we're picking out things that we would tell them to work on for next time so that you know what to work on for next time.

EMILY: The last thing you'll hear us talk about during our feedback is we'll sometimes flag that feedback is coaching feedback or adjudicating feedback. What that just means is when we're giving adjudicating feedback, it's us looking at the debate through the eyes of an adjudicator who is sitting in that room adjudicating that debate. Whereas when we give you coaching feedback, it's just additional tips and tricks-- maybe not things that necessarily were deciding factors in that debate on that day, but things to take away if your learning or teaching debating for future experiences that you might have.

TONY DAVEY: OK. Let's get into it. I hope it helps.

DYLAN HUYNH: Welcome to the grand final of the 2019 Primary Schools State Debating Championships. After the five rounds of elite representative debating, as well as two semi-finals last night, this debate will be between the two most successful regions in this tournament-- the Northern Sidney region and the Illawarra Southeast region.

The affirmative team from Northern Sidney region is first speaker Alex, second speaker Evelyn, third speaker Josie, and team advisor Max. The negative team from Illawarra Southeast east region is first speaker Evie, second speaker Violet, third speaker Romney, and team advisor Luke. The adjudicators for this debate are Indigo, Guy, and Alex. Each speaker may speak for four minutes. There will be a warning bell at three minutes--

[bell dings]

--with two bells at four minutes--

[bell dings twice]

--to indicate that the speaker's time has expired. A bell will be run continuously--

[bell dings continuously]

--if a speaker exceeds the maximum time limit by more than one minute. Finally, before we begin, please ensure that all mobile phones are switched off as a courtesy to all speakers. The topic for this debate is that we should ban students from bringing unhealthy food to school. Please welcome the first speaker of the affirmative team to open the debate.

[applause]

ALEX HARVEY: Right now, students are bringing snacks to school that contain unnecessarily-- unnecessary amounts of sugar and salt. These are the foods that will take control of you, destroy your focus, and destroy your health. School is not the place for unhealthy food. This is what we are here to discuss today.

We, the affirmative team, define the topic as all kids from K to 12 in schools all across Australia. It will be banned from-- we will be banned from bringing any foods with excessive amounts of sugar, fat, or salt. This excludes foods with natural sugars, such as fruit or other organic products. Examples of unhealthy foods include things such as donuts, lollies, chips, cakes, and soft drinks. They can instead bring other, much healthier foods, such as sushi, fresh fruit, humus, and crackers, wraps, and much more.

School canteens will also participate in this change, for example, replacing chocolate cupcakes with a much healthier, but still delicious, option, such as banana muffins. This is still giving kids a chance to get good, yummy food, but compromising it so that the food will be more healthy. We plan to put this change into place by 2020.

I, as the first speaker, will be arguing that sugar can decrease concentration and how sugar increases obesity. And our second speaker will be stating that support-- that sugar-- supporters-- sugar will help us support a healthy lifestyle for the future. Now onto my points.

My team's first point will show how healthy food falters the concentrating and learning of the ability of children. Right now, students are only filling up on absolute junk, such as cakes and donuts, at school. These kinds of foods take over our mind and emotions, resulting in a lack of focus in class. Even if every student does not eat excessive amounts of sugar, , all you need is a few or even one student to be off task to affect the education and focus of the whole class. Every student is a vital piece of the puzzle. If one piece is playing up, then the whole puzzle is unsolvable.

As an example, at recess, there are a group of students that stock up on a large bag of lollies. When they get back to class, they are very hyper and disruptive, disadvantaging their whole class. This is not fair. Students who eat junk in recess and lunch do not have informed consent. They are often not aware of the consequences that they get.

Often at this age, you are not aware at the damage you are doing to your body. They are harming others around them. Such as in the classroom, they are harming the education of their students. They're also being affected by peer pressure. Let's say, if one child is eating a lolly, then they all want to join in and eat the sugar. And they have not developed the required mental capacity to say no to their cravings.

After the change, the focus and education of students will be enriched and thriving. Unhealthy foods are holding us back. Education is the highest priority to students, not food. This is so important, because we want to squeeze the most out of school.

[bell dings]

Sugar is the one of-- is one of the highest components to lack of concentration. If we ban sugar, we are maximising the capabilities of us as your future generation. My team's second argument will show how banning unhealthy food will minimise the amount of child obesity. Right now, Australia is within the top 10 of child obesity rates in the world. This is not the message that we want to convey to other countries and our own citizens.

The largest contributor to this is bad diet. So many children in Australia have a bad diet and regularly eat junky and unhealthy foods at school. This is a serious problem. And we-- this is a serious problem and a problem that this change will without a doubt minimise.

As an example, look into the lunchbox and diet of students that often consist of one cake, or a very sweet item, and a salty and fatty snack, and the occasional item of fruit and veg. No wonder Australia has a problem with child obesity. Look at this.

[bell dings twice]

This kind of daily sugar intake must be stopped, and replaced with protein and a lot more fruit and veg. I can guarantee you the amount of child obesity in Australia will come rocketing down after this change. We understand this change will not stop child obesity completely. Obviously that is impossible. But what it will do is reduce it massively.

After the change, Australia will undeniably become one of the healthiest countries in the world. Great physical health brings great mental health, because it makes you feel more happy with yourself and what you can achieve. This is so important, because happiness and good health is what gives you the ability to learn and live life well. Keeping junk food is keeping child obesity and lowering us, as children and as adults-- our living quality.

[applause]

TONY DAVEY: So as an adjudicator, we really, really loved that definition for this topic. And the reason we love it is by the end of it, we had a really clear idea of what was in for this debate, in terms of healthy food, and what was out for this debate, in terms of junk food. Oftentimes, people are reluctant to use examples in their definition. But you can see here the power of using examples, such that we had chips, and donuts, et cetera, were no longer going to be allowed at school. Instead, they were going to be replaced by things like sushi and things like wraps.

There was a slightly weird moment at the end, where it seemed like the first affirmative had been paid off by big banana, and was going to get rid of chocolate muffins, and replace them with what we hope the speaker doesn't live his life eating, which is banana muffins. But other than that, at the end of that definition, everyone in the room had a really, really clear idea of exactly what the affirmative's proposal was, which means that that speaker has 100% done his job in defining the topic and giving us an affirmative model.

PAT: OK. I, as an adjudicator, was really taken by his first argument, which I thought was brilliant for a lot of reasons. One of the things that happened was that he used a framework that we coached him about earlier in the tournament, and that was how to talk about whether people have given their informed consent to potential harms that might come up during different debates. It's not really a question that's relevant to this debate.

But as an adjudicator, I don't sit there thinking to myself, wait a minute, why is he talking about informed consent to harms in a debate about children eating food at school? What I hear is that kids lack the mental capacity to resist their own cravings. I thought that was really interesting information. I hear that kids are likely to peer pressure each other into eating unhealthy foods when they have it near them. I hear that they're often just not informed enough to resist junk food because they're not aware of how bad it is for them.

So as a coach, I'm a little bit weirded out by some of the language he used about informed consent. But honestly, as an adjudicator, I'm just hearing lots of really good, believable explanations as to why kids would be likely to overindulge and not think it through when they're at school and they're presented with lollies and chips. So I thought that was really effective material.

EMILY: Kind of leading on from that in a bit of a coaching tip for, I guess, topics more generally, it's really tempting to look at a topic like this and just be focused on the buzzword of 'unhealthy' food. But it's important to remember that this debate is asking you specifically to consider whether you should be allowed to bring that food to school. So what the speaker does really well is, in his first point, he clearly explains how it can be disruptive in class to have a student who has come in from eating sugary foods, and is hyperactive and distracted, and that actually affects education, which makes it really specific to this debate about school.

I think that could have been done a little bit more in the second point as well, when we're talking about obesity rates-- maybe thinking about things like peer pressure, again, in this point and considering how if you bring junk food to school, even if your parents maybe packed you an OK amount to snack on in your lunch box, maybe you're sharing food with other people; you don't know how much you're consuming; you can get addicted to it more easily when everyone else is eating it around you.

Those kinds of things help to take this debate just from one about unhealthy food generally and into the realm of this specific topic, which is about whether you should be able to bring them to school. So that's something important to remember, which is read and reread the topic, and know exactly what you have to be debating about.

TONY DAVEY: Yeah, even if that kid just says out loud, you're at school for one third of your life, one third of your meals are at school, therefore this will have a third of an impact on your food intake-- that kind of, I think, makes that a more powerful argument. OK. Let's move on to the first negative speaker.

[applause]

EVIE NEILL: OK. So we agree with the affirmative team's definition. But we will oppose their arguments. OK. So firstly, some of the foods that they have stated they are not allowed to bring to school can actually have some really good health benefits.

So there's some things that they have banned, such as salt-- and when you get low salt levels, you can actually get some really bad symptoms, such as dizziness. And so if a child does fall-- does get these symptoms, then they will need to keep up their salt intake. And because it is banned at school, they will no longer be able to take this at a regular basis.

And-- so not all kids go hyper from eating one little snake or a lollipop. It's just when they have large doses of these junk foods, such as a bag of lollies. But no child is actually going to bring in a giant bag of family-size [inaudible] or something. They're not going to do that. They'll probably bring in one, maybe two. And that's really not going to affect their learning much.

So when kids do bring in lollies, they-- most of the time, they are aware because parents have told them, don't eat too many. Don't eat too much. You'll get hyper and-- or you'll get sick. So probably from past experience, they will have-- they will know what's going to happen to them, which means they will probably avoid having this happen at school, because they don't really want to embarrass themselves in front of their friends or something.

So-- also, their-- some of the things that they listed are unhealthy can have sort of-- so they have a lot of fat in them or something. Sometimes these things can the actual healthy foods. Like sandwiches can involve fat [inaudible] or something. And these things have been listed as things that are allowed. So you're not really avoiding this problem.

OK. Yeah. OK. So now onto my team's points. So my points today will be it's the parents' choice whether they should be able to bring in junk food or not. And some disadvantaged families can't afford healthier foods because they're more expensive.

So-- and my second speaker's points will be they are selling at the canteen-- because the topic said students are not allowed to bring them to school. They-- it's not that they can't buy them at school. So if they sell them at the canteen, why shouldn't they be able to bring them? And so another reason that she will be putting up is some kids have health reasons, such as diabetes, that need this junk food to keep up their levels of-- so they can stay healthy.

OK. So now to my first point. So some-- parents should be able to feed their children as they see fit. If they want them to eat these foods, then they should be able to.

[bell dings]

Sometimes these unhealthy foods have reasonings, such as traditions, cultures, or celebrations. Or they might just not have time to prepare a healthier meal in the mornings. So they should be able to choose. It is their child. They do know them better than the government does. So one rule that the government has enforced may not be very good for their child because of a reason or something.

So right now, kids can bring unhealthy food with their parent permission. Parents have given them the-- they've said, yes, you can do this. And so this means that it's allowed for them. So after the change, parents' wouldn't be able to feed children as they either need to or as they see fit. So they can-- might not be able to give what they need.

So for example, a child may want to-- a parent may want a child to take cultural food, but they can't because the guidelines say, no, you can't take this food. And this may be the only thing they-- this may be--

[bell dings twice]

--one of the only things they know how to make or something along these lines. OK. And that's important because people need to give children what they think best. So now to my second point. Some people don't have the money for healthy food.

So right now, kids can get up-- kids get up. And their parents work hard to help feed their family. Disadvantage families-- they give their children whatever food they can afford. So since healthy food is expensive, it's-- they provide something that might be slightly unhealthier, but which kids can no longer take to school.

So this is bad because it's important that they get what-- the food that they need, because we want children to eat. If they can't afford these healthier foods, then they won't be able to take anything to school. So if people can't provide, then the kids won't be able to eat. So the affirmative team is apparently stating we want these kids to become even more undernourished.

So an example of this is a person who's just come to Australia. They don't have the money they--

[bell dings continuously]

--very much money. And that is why we're proud to negate this.

[applause]

EMILY: OK. So as an adjudicator watching this debate, it's really great to hear from so early on in this team's case a lot of great rebuttal to what the other team has said. And this speaker did a great job trying to cover as much of that first affirmative speech as she possibly could. A little bit of coaching feedback that maybe then will be helpful to improve that rebuttal even more is to be really clear in your rebuttal what it is that you're responding to. So that sentence, the other team said that, and then kind of giving a summary of their point might seem like a little bit of a waste of time for you.

But it's really helpful when you're listening to the speeches so that you can point exactly to which part of the opposition's case that this speaker is actually responding to. And you can link those two up in a way that's a bit easier to keep track of. So make sure you're really, really clear what point it is you're responding to. And then say, our response to this is, or, this is incorrect because, and then go into what the speaker did really well.

TONY DAVEY: So just the pace of coaching feedback that we think is really important to note-- that was a really woke speech. It's a great tactic a lot of the time to be more woke than the team you're up against. And we think that that speaker, especially when she was talking about the right of parents to choose what food goes in their kid's lunchbox, was a really, really great example of what we can do when we take a cultural identity and make it important to the debate-- that the other team is somehow diminishing the importance of that cultural identity.

Effectively, this speaker was demanding the affirmative to explain why a kid from one cultural background couldn't bring a piece of food from that cultural background to school because it kind of fell within the guidelines of junk food. We think that was a really powerful moment in the debate around parental choice.

Just a note on that-- when you are talking about those kinds of small, sometimes, groups in society, whether that be the socioeconomically disadvantaged, whether that be recently arrived new-generation Australians, it's really important to not just take the first step of saying why their rights are going to be diminished. But then take that second step of telling us exactly why we should care, why those rights rise to the level that we shouldn't do what the other team is recommending that we do.

PAT: Cool. And mine's just a little bit simpler. I thought that, particularly when she was going through the material on how it's better for parents to choose, she came up with some really good headings of reasons why parents might want to give you unhealthy food-- if it was celebratory, if it was part of your culture. I think that those arguments become even more powerful if she does just take the time to give us examples to go with those things.

So if she says, this Indian food is particularly fatty; or, this Greek moussaka has a lot of fat in it; or if she says, if you've just had your birthday, it would be great to be able to bring birthday cake to school in your lunchbox, just a little bit of extra to remind you of how much fun you had the day before-- little examples that make it clear that you're not just making up this celebratory fatty food or this important cultural food. I think that makes that even better material. But as an adjudicator, I am impressed by those ideas. And I'm taking them into account.

TONY DAVEY: OK. Let's move on.

[applause]

EVELYN ZHU: In this debate, we have a negative team who wrongly believes that banning unhealthy food is a bad idea and that children should be allowed to have unhealthy food, while our affirmative team believes banning unhealthy foods in schools is healthier and better for concentration and teaches children healthy habits. So the opposition said that children don't have a lot of lollies, they're not going to bring in a whole, giant packets of lollies just to chow on at school.

This is not true. Children do because they don't really have the mental capacity, or the strength, or the ability to restrain themselves from having something that they like, which is why the schools need to step in and ban this. They have to take action to stop our children from being overweight and being really not healthy.

They said that parents can tell them, oh, you can't have lollies, and that kind of thing. But parents really don't have any control at what happens on-- at school. Say a child brings in lollies at school and decides to share them with his friends. How can a parent say-- how can they communicate with this random other child that, oh, you can't share food with my child, or anything like that?

And also, most kids can't really understand or listen to this because, as my first speaker has said, they don't really have this mental capacity. And if they're in a social group and people are bringing in lollies, they kind of have this peer pressure to fit in with this group and keep eating lollies.

They also said that children should have the right to choose whether they get to eat healthy food or not. As we have said, children really don't have the ability to understand if it's unhealthy for them or not. And they don't really have the informed consent to make the right decision for themselves because children-- if they really like sugar or something, they might not make the right decision because they are blinded by their like for it. And also, they are still getting some kind of a choice, except that it's a choice between a healthier food or a different healthier food. And this healthier food is still yummy. And it's better for them.

And also, they said that parents should be able to feed them whatever they want. And this is true. But on weekends, they can still give them whatever they want to have. It's just we're restricting what happens at school. They also said that healthy food can be a bit more expensive. Yes, organic food, or things like that, can be a little more expensive. But are we valuing children's health over money? We want our children to be healthy. We want our children to have a good life. We value this over money.

Also, if more people are starting to buy healthier things, companies are going to realise that, oh, maybe I might make-- be able to make a bit more profit or something. And they might decrease the amount of money that they will sell their products for. This is kind of happening with more sustainable packaging. So right now, there's quite a big movement going on about how people want better packaging-- so more recyclable packaging. And so companies have taken that in mind and have created more paper packaging, more things that can be recycled.

[bell dings]

My first point is that our proposal means children will be able to develop healthy habits from a young age. Right now, children are bringing in packets of lollies, sugar-loaded cookies, and very sweet chocolate. Children do not have the mental capacity to understand the dangerous consequences of unhealthy food. So schools need to step in and ban these foods.

Imagine your typical child at school. He brings sugar-loaded muesli bars, cookies, and lollies to school every day. He doesn't know the effects sugar and salt has on his liver, his whole body, and his well-being. He doesn't have the information to make a good decision. His school bans unhealthy food. And he starts winning fruit in instead. He begins to understand that fruits are better than the old lollies he used to have. He slowly r-- becomes accustomed to the fruits and realise it is much healthier and tastier than his old lollies.

If his school, which is kind of an authority to these children, decides sugars need to be banned, he's probably going to make a habit to have fruit. It's like the government. If the government tells us smoking is bad, we believe them, right?

[bell dings twice]

Children will believe what their school is telling them. And over time, they will make a habit of picking healthy over unhealthy. It's important for these habits to start young so our future generation knows the right thing to do. My second point is that healthy food can actually be tastier. So many lollies, chocolates, and unhealthy food tries to replicate the flavour of fruits, for example. But why have the unhealthy option when you could really just have the real fruit?

For example, there are so many fruity lollies out there-- raspberry, fruit juice, lemon, jelly snakes, and so many more. These foods are flavoured with artificial flavours and colorings and don't taste real. How can a factory's machine-made flavours ever compare with mother nature's real fruit? Would you rather have a mango lolly-- which is unhealthy, sugary, fake-tasting-- or an actual mango? A real fruit, or other healthy foods, tastes so much better and is actually authentic.

My third argument will explain how this change will majorly benefit the environment. Right now, children are bringing mountains of packaging to school.

[bell dings continuously]

Thank you.

[applause]

EMILY: Cool. So as an adjudicator watching this debate, we were really happy to hear that there was some multi-layered rebuttal going on from very early in this speech-- where the speaker was considering not only just kids, but also what the parents are capable of controlling at school.

So not only does this speaker respond to the negative team's material about kids bringing kind of an OK amount of junk food to school by saying, no, children themselves are irresponsible and won't make those kinds of rational weigh-ups because they don't understand, she then also goes a step up and says, and even if parents were able to understand that children should eat a small amount of junk food, they're not at school with their kids, they can't tell their classmate not to share their jelly snakes with their child. That kind of analysis was really excellent, because it addresses both groups of people who are coming out in this debate and covers both of them really cleanly from the very start of her speech.

TONY DAVEY: Cool. One of the things that I noticed was during that rebuttal about whether or not disadvantaged people would be in trouble and effectively have their kids going hungry because they couldn't afford more healthy food-- I thought that rebuttal had two parts to it. And the first part was a little bit evasive. It didn't deal with that question of whether or not poorer families could afford the food.

It just kind of stomped up and down, and said, don't you value your children's health, surely that's more important than the cost. It was still OK. But then the second response said, look, once everybody has to buy this healthier food, people see there's a market for it, there's a demand for it. Prices come down. The same kind of thing happened with packaging. And she talks that through really, really well.

I guess what I want to say is, as a coach, that's why we think you should have two different bits of rebuttal for every argument you're trying to face up to. Because maybe one of them will be a little bit evasive and miss that question of whether or not poorer people can afford healthy food, but the second part might really deal with that question by saying, prices will come down, and therefore everyone will be able to afford this food. So just as a coaching tip, it's such a good idea to have two different reasons why every idea the other team has was wrong-- one might be evasive, but one might absolutely hit the nail on the head.

PAT: And finally, just looking at that speech as an adjudicator, the content that this speaker had around what happens when an authority figure like a school sends a really strong message that unhealthy food is not OK and a bad decision for kids to make short-term and long-term we thought was really, really powerful in this debate. It was a really good analogy to draw with the federal government's message on smoking, and why that was an important line in the sand for the government to draw there, on why kids would now view junk food as something they shouldn't be doing because of this really strong figure in their life telling them that it was bad. There's an even further step that's open to a speaker to take, which we'd normally recommend, which is talking about how kids internalise that message and respond to that message. But in as far as it went, this content was excellent in the context of this debate.

[applause]

VIOLET FITZSIMONS: So the other team states that children follow every rule the school sets and they will always listen to the school's guidelines. And they use the example of smoking and how everyone listens to the government when they say smoking is bad. We found this to be quite an ironic example, seeing as most people still smoke even though the government says it is bad. And to this day, people are still getting cancer from it.

But also, children don't always listen to school rules. And it's commonly known that they sneak things into school or break rules commonly, because they are kids. But also, kids will not stop loving junk food just because you make them bring apples to school. If not, they will-- if not so, they will wanted more because they can't get it at school. So they'll buy it more out of school. And in the end, they'll just be eating more junk food and become more obese.

The other team also stated that kids can't comprehend for themselves if, sugar is bad, or if they should eat junk food, or if they should not eat junk food. We think kids are sufficiently intelligent to be educated at school and could be educated on what to eat and what not to eat. And they will be able to comprehend not to eat an entire family-pack of gummy bears at school.

But also, sugary food does come in recyclable packaging. And one of the other team's main arguments was that healthier food is more sp-- is better for the environment. We just didn't see this as true, because all food comes in more recyclable packaging these days because, as they said, there is a big movement towards that.

But-- and they also stated that parents don't have much control over kids. And if they bring in gummy bears to school, they won't be able to do anything about it. But realistically, it's the parents' money. They're going to notice if $10 is gone, because they're buying all this candy, because candy is rather expensive. But also, parents have more control over kids than school does. They know their kids better. And they see them more than school does. School only has kids for six hours, whereas they have them for 18. It just doesn't make sense.

But also, the other team's other argument was that there's machine-made flavours in unhealthy food. And they should [inaudible] the apples, the bananas. Well, there's actually-- one of their examples from the first speaker was that kids should eat banana muffins instead of chocolate muffins. Well, most commonly, there's a fake banana essence in there. So they're still getting unhealthy liquids and foods throughout the other team's supposedly healthy foods.

They also stated that kids eating sugar would stop them from concentrating. Well, we actually disagree, and think this will give them better concentration and help them in education. We also think that peer pressure doesn't control what children eat. And they can decide for themselves what they eat, because they're at primary school. [inaudible] all getting up and saying, eat this gummy bear. No one really cares. But also-- but that's, as I said, arguments towards them.

So my team's third argument will show that children actually eat more unhealthily under the other team's model. So right now, they have a choice to bring unhealthy or healthy foods to school. They can have moderately unhealthy or incredibly healthy foods depending what their parents want. And they're not craving unhealthy food because their parents are giving it to them in set, controlled situations. And they're still getting, the majority of the time, healthy food. And parents are already setting guidelines and-- what they can eat and what they can eat. They're keeping an eye on kids. And the government doesn't need to.

So after the change, kids will crave unhealthy food because it's deemed-- being deprived of them. We'll basically just see the backlash effect here, where kids will just want food more. They'll buy it more outside of school. They'll buy it in the school canteen. They'll sneak it into school, which is really easy. Because if you think about it, you can just pour soda into a drink bottle. And it looks exactly like water. So they could sneak it into very easily. And the teachers would never be able to tell.

But yeah. Basically, they'll just want it more. And they'll become actually addicted to junk food. Whereas now, they're actually having perfect amounts and not-- and nothing's actually going wrong. But also, realistically, the school doesn't have that much control over kids. They're only controlling them six hours of the day.

[bell dings]

And even though they'll still be sneaking junk food in, there's-- that's only one fourth of the day. And at home, parents will just have more control over what kids eat. And under their parents' supervision, seeing as they know their kids better than the government do, the kids will just be healthier and happier generally. So this is important because the main topic in this debate is obviously obesity and how-- if kids are healthy or not. And we find it quite ironic that the other team themselves are actually supporting obesity within their argument and within their model by making kids actually more addicted to this sort of food.

And at the end of the day, all we're going to see is backlash and kids wanting junk food more. So even if the opposition manages not to cause this catastrophic backlash effects on kids, they will still be encouraged to eat junk food more out of school. Because if they're not eating it in school, parents will think it's better if they eat excess at parties or outside of school. And they'll just end up eating more junk food anyway.

And onto my next point. So my team's final argument will show that children with medical issues will be greatly disadvantaged by the affirmative's model. So right now, kids with medical issues can bring in the required food, which is often very salty or very sugary. They can receive the necessary attention they need. And this is vital for their safety at school. Because if they don't receive this, they could faint or have dizzy spells. So a great example of this is--

[bell dings twice]

--a kid with diabetes. They need to bring sugar into school. And they need to have this. Otherwise, they could f-- experience nausea, dizziness, and aggressiveness. And this would greatly affect their education. And we couldn't allow them to be disadvantaged just because they were born with a disease. And to get their sugar levels high, they will need unhealthy foods, such as jelly snakes or gummy bears, which the other team has already banned.

So after the change, kids can't receive medical attention and will fall into these illnesses, which is absolutely atrocious. Because at school, they should be-- feel safe and receive the proper education no matter what health level you are at. This will impair their learning. And even if the other team finds a substitute for the sugar that they couldn't take, this will probably be more expensive, their family's can't afford this, and probably more painful towards the child.

This is important because medical issues should not disadvantage learning towards any child. And every child has the right to the same education and attention at school-- not just because they're banning sugar that they vitally need if they have diabetes. And that is why we are proud to negate.

[applause]

TONY DAVEY: OK. So some coaching feedback-- and before I get to my specific tip, one thing that you're going to see recur in different ways from everybody's feedback today is that this speaker spoke crazy fast. And there are different ways that was problematic for her over the course of her speech.

Let's get into how it was problematic and another problem that I would give in coaching feedback. That is, it's really important to put the other team's case at its highest when you're attacking it. You don't know how their point is going to develop over their bench. You don't know whether the point you're attacking is going to be the final version of that point. But in any event, you always want to be attacking the best possible version of the other team's case so that your case is at its strongest.

So when this speaker was talking about peer pressure, it was literally, partly because of the crazy fast rate of speech, a one-line response, which was just, look, kids aren't going to be pee pressured by other kids into eating gummy bears. There was some content already from the affirmative as to how kids would respond when they saw other kids with junk food and the relationship between what's in one kid's lunch box to what's in another. But importantly, the affirmative case isn't over yet.

And there's every possibility that that point is qualified and morphs into a really sophisticated version of the argument about how kids feel a certain kind of pressure to fill their lunch box with junk food to fit in, to be one of the cool kids. However that argument can play out, it's important at this stage of the debate that this speaker, in rebuttal, doesn't take the basic version of that argument, but instead thinks to themselves, what's the most sophisticated, intelligent version of an argument around peer pressure for kids, and then, why is that wrong.

PAT: Cool. My coaching tip is about something she said during her arguments, about how this will increase cravings. And it's also about the fact that, because she is going so quickly, she does kind of brush over amazing ideas in a way that's probably a problem for her case.

So I thought the argument-- and she says this in one line-- that parents will now let kids have more bad food at parties was a really, really clever idea. And I think what you need to do is take time-- and this is true of every time it happens in a debate. Whenever you want to say that someone will behave a certain way, you need to take 30 seconds to tell me what's going on in that person's brain that would make them behave that way.

So it can't just be, now parents will buy kids whatever they want at their parties. It needs to be, now if I'm a parent who's thinking of hosting a bunch of kids for a party, I'm not going to say to myself, I need to be careful what kinds of foods I give them. Because I'm thinking to myself, these kids, all day at school, are having their health needs looked after. So there's really no onus on me to make sure that the party food I'm providing is healthy.

It seems really likely that if I'm a parent, I'm now going to have-- set a really indulgent spread for my kids' parties. I'm not going to say, ooh, is that cake too rich for them, are other parents going to be worried? I'm going to say, look, from what I can tell, the school's taking care of their health. So of course, I can provide every lolly and salty snack imaginable.

So rather than having that one line, parents will just indulge their kids at parties now-- which I think is true-- every time you say, someone will do something, try to tell the adjudicators in the audience what's going on in their brains now-- what are they thinking and feeling that will make us believe they're going to act the way that you say they will? And again if you're talking too quickly, you might have trouble realising you've come up with a great idea. And you won't give it the extra explanation it deserves.

EMILY: So right at the end of this speech, this speaker gives a quick point about students with kind of extreme medical issues and how they might be impacted by this model. While it's obviously, again, really great to see speakers trying to think about different groups in this debate and not just the majority of students, as an adjudicator, this point ultimately was not given that much weight in this debate for the reason that, if you think about it practically for a second, it's a kind of outcome that is unlikely to occur.

We thought it was unlikely that the affirmative team would have to support a world where even students with serious medical issues had things snatched away from their hands and were left to collapse in classrooms. We thought that was the kind of thing that probably the government and schools would make allowances for. So it was kind of unlikely that we would get this massive harm to this group of people, like the speaker was describing. So although it was definitely a good train of thought to be having in the prep room, probably something that didn't really push this team's case forward from an adjudicator's perspective.

JOSIE JOHNSON: OK. So in this debate, we have a negative team who are trying to tell you a few things. The first thing that they're trying to get across is that children should have the right to choose and that they have the mental capacity to choose because children are smart. They're not dumb. Well, yes, it is what they're saying.

But really, this is K to 12. Do you think that K to 2 students, or even some 3 to 6 students, have the mental capacity to go, OK, this is bad for me, so I'm not going to eat it? No, they say sugar, they want to eat it because that's just what they're taught. They don't have the brain functional enough to think, this could be bad for me down the road, so I'm not going to have it. They see something that they want, and they have it.

And parents can't control what happens when these kids go to school. They can't-- do you really think every kid is going to listen when their parent says, don't eat junk food; now go to school, where I can't supervise you and no one's really watching exactly what you eat? Kids aren't going to take this opportunity to just do what their parents say. If they want sugar, they're going to have it. They're not just not going to do it because their parents say.

I think we're underestimating the amount of rebel-ism that these kids have. But if their parents packed them health food in to begin with, this couldn't happen. Because look, they're not getting a food to trade with. They're having a food that's healthy in the first place, which will help them. They have also tried to say that canteens, for example, are giving them unhealthy food. Why aren't we addressing this-- they're giving unhealthy food? We've said in our model that canteens will get onto this train and do this too.

They have tried to tell you that this will actually increase obesity-- and this is one of their main points-- because people will buy it more outside of school. Firstly, how much money do you think these kids have? Yes, unhealthy food is cheaper. But it is not like it's $1 to get a whole packet. It's still going to costs them a bit of money.

They can't buy excess food. Because in the right [inaudible], their parents are giving them this money. They can't just find the money and keep it. They need to get it from someone. And they need to source it. And that is majorly from the parents, from doing chores and stuff. They'll need to save a lot, especially younger kids, just to get a packet of lollies because their parents aren't actually giving them this much.

And also, these parents love their kids. [inaudible] they're going to give them mountains of sugar. If they can't buy it, if their parents aren't giving it to them, where do you think they're going to get it? Yes, of course, there a possibility they could get it from other kids. But if their parents aren't doing this either, how is this going to happen? They're kind of cancelling this out.

Also, they being taught to eat more healthy food more often. When you are doing, h-- when you are younger, school is probably the majority of the time that you're spending, besides, of course, sleeping. So this is the majority of the time where you are getting those habits-- where you're learning how to react to these types of things, what to do.

So for anyone for a young-- age five, example, when their brain is still developing and can take stuff in, that they should eat healthy, they are eventually going to do this because they are used to this change. And they know, OK, I should eat healthy. This is something that I've been taught from younger.

So it's therefore more likely that these kids later on will be able to eat healthy. They've been taught by a younger age and can be accustomed to it. It's not like we're going to let them eat unhealthy from K to 6, and then in year 7, say, OK, now I have to eat unhealthy. They're going to be accustomed to this--

[bell dings]

--and know how they-- and know how to react. Plus, they're saying that we are not taking care of the kids who have medical stuff. Firstly, how many kids do you think at school have things such as diabetes? This normally generates when you're older. Plus, you get diabetes as a source from eating too much junk food in the first place.

So I don't really think this is a problem. But sure, kids with sugar levels really do have this. But this isn't 100% the school's responsibility. If this does happen, what do you think they're more likely to do-- take care of a child-- take care of the child you don't know much about, or call a hospital, or a bigger source, that could take care of them better?

This goes for more likely a better thing. They're not just going to take care of students, especially with this change. So yes, they are taking care of their students, but they're putting it into more reliable hands that can actually do something. Yes, the school might cater for some of their needs, but not all them, because they know they're not the best people to do this.

They've also said that some kids might not be able to eat cultural food because it might be unhealthy. But really, how much cultural food which is normally made at home-- say, Indian or Italian-- is actually that unhealthy?

[bell dings twice]

It is normally pretty good food, that is good for you. They've also said that things, such as banana muffins, that we suggested are healthy aren't actually because they don't contain stuff. When they're made home-- when they are homemade, like we are suggesting-- because many canteens already do this, and it's something that they already do-- they aren't putting banana flavouring. That would taste disgusting. I don't actually think that exists. They're using real bananas and pure bananas. This is happening with a lot of other things, which is creating great, healthy food.

Our team, however, has said that this great for concentration, as it-- because of the lack of focus is gone, because it can help the teachers and the kids with better concentration and better work. We have also said that it changes obesity. Because we are in the top 10. And this needs to change. This isn't good for our kids.

Our second speaker says that this introduces healthy habits, helping kids be more accustomed to this so they can do it later on in life when they're not restricted. They've also said that it is tastier. And sometimes, organic can actually be better, because it is better for you and it increases-- and it gives you hormones, which is good for you. Thank you.

[applause]

EMILY: OK. So a little bit of coaching feedback to start off the feedback on this speech-- something that we thought, from a coaching perspective, that can be taken away that was done really well in this speech is in terms of the rebuttal. So what this speaker consistently does really well in the rebuttal is that not only does she start by explaining clearly why-- when the negative team says, no, there are already safeguards against those problems, she's able to firstly say, no, no, those safeguards aren't actually working, for instance, by saying, no, kids aren't long-termist. That's a really clear response, first and foremost. But then she also takes it to the next step of saying, so if I've proven that you can never fix the problem by just staying as we are, why does our model conclusively fix that problem?

So for instance, you'll hear her giving rebuttal that's structured in ways like, no, kids are too short-termist. They can't make this choice. Instead, in our model, we make it for them. We fix the problem. Or things like, right now, kids only find out when they're much older that they should have healthy habits. We fix that problem by giving them those healthy habits from way earlier on. That kind of rebuttal is really successful because it not only reestablishes that the negative team cannot fix this problem, but it also really hammers home that your model is the one that's going to do that. And that's what helps you to do well in these types of debates.

TONY DAVEY: Yeah. And kind of in the same vein, specifically what I really liked as an adjudicator, just even looking at that first bit of rebuttal, was the amount of inside-of-brain, kid-thinking talk that she presented as she was going through her different arguments. So much of the material was like, I'm a kid. I'm sitting at school. I'm presented with these lollies. I'm saying this to myself. I'm not able to say this to myself.

It was all kind of framed from that really simple, but believable, perspective of what's going on in people's brains that would make them think and behave the way she says they do. So that kind of first-person framing, here's what I'm thinking as a kid when I'm offered these lollies; here's what I'm thinking when I go out; here's what I'm thinking when I'm a parent and my kids asks me for $10-- I thought that that was really successful and really won me over on quite a few of those arguments. Also, as a coach, I'd encourage my kids to use that kind of language.

PAT: And lastly, as an adjudicator, I was impressed with this speaker's use of examples. Way back at first negative, we'd had an argument made by the negative that the problem-- one of the problems with the affirmative's model was that it would disadvantage kids from different cultural backgrounds because their cultural food would not be able to be brought to school within this ban on unhealthy food. It was a point that was reasonably well made, but didn't have any example. So we didn't really know what kind of cultures we were talking about and who specifically would be disadvantaged.

Now, all of a sudden, in the third affirmative, we've got a couple of examples. So in the response to this argument, we've got named Indian food and Italian food as food that is just going to be fine under the model proposed by the affirmative team. It's not a whole lot more than what the negative's done. But at this point in the debate, as an adjudicator, I'm thinking, you know what, kids from different cultural backgrounds are probably going to be just fine under the model the affirmative has proposed.

[applause]

ROMNEY JANSSENS: OK. So I thought there were three main themes in this debate. If this-- for health, and if this is-- and obesity; if this is affordable for parents that are disadvantaged; and also if this is ultimately the parents' choice. So I'm going to start with health.

So you said that this is-- there is a massive problem in the world, that obesity is on the rise, and that we need to stop kids from getting obese. And then you said that, oh, it is still the parent's choice. They can just eat it on the weekends. It's not-- if you can-- if you just say it's OK to just eat it on the weekends, that's exactly what kids are going to do.

They're going to go into the six hours of school. They're going to have two meals. And then straightaway, as they get home, they're just going to eat what they want. This isn't going to-- one, school rule with-- high in salts and high in sugars, isn't going to change a family's diet and what they eat. It's just not going to work. It doesn't just change that quickly.

Also, you said that kids will-- one of your points were that kids will get distracted in class because they've been eating high sugars and high salts. Yes, this is true, that you can get distracted in class. But there are actually other healthy foods that have bad things in them, like artificial flavours and preservatives, which are actually really even worse than some sugars.

Because sugars-- yes, it can make you crazy. But these artificial flavours and artificial-- and preservatives are kind of in their mind. And it makes kid's upset and angry. And it messes with their brain more-- and artificial flavours and that will mess with their brains more than sugars that are more natural than-- sugars and salts than artificial flavours and colorings. That's why they-- yeah.

And then you said we-- school can't cater for everyone, for the people that have diabetes. So you're just kind of saying, oh, we'll just chuck them in hospitals. And they can deal with it. We can't just deal with everyone. This is completely wrong.

So you're going to say that, oh, so if a kid can't have this snake because he's going low in sugars, and he needs more sugars-- you're just going to wait for someone medically to come. That is just a dumb-- and you're just costing a student's life for your dumb little rule that isn't going to actually help many people. So that's just crazy that you would think that that's a good idea.

Now, in that one, I've have stated that-- and also, disadvantaged people, it's-- there are people-- the kids-- so let's do-- give them an example here. In disadvantaged families, the parents go-- get up early. They go to work to try and support their family. And they only have this-- not that long to shop so they can get back to their home. They only have time to grab some chips and grab some cheap food. And kids-- while they're going to work and trying to help the family, kids-- they're making their own lunch.

[bell dings]

They don't have time to go to the fridge. And they don't have time to make up a healthy salad for a sandwich. That's just-- they don't have time for this. And this is the sad case. And also, rural families-- they have-- some have little, tiny shops ages away. And because there's a drought at the moment, it-- we don't have-- they don't have many fresh and good foods for those rural and disadvantaged families because it's too expensive out there. So they can't actually have that healthy food in those disadvantaged areas in the drought. Because that's not going to help. So yeah, rural families.

And there's also other alternatives to not make-- to not punish the kids for having unhealthy food. Because ultimately, it's not the children's fault that they have this unhealthy food. It's because their family hasn't been brought up in the most-- in the best way. And they haven't had the best life during this.

[bell dings twice]

So you're just-- so there are other alternatives. You can be like-- you can acknowledge the people that have a healthier lunch-- good job, you're having a healthy lunch-- instead of saying, you've got an unhealthy lunch, you need to do better next time, and just making them feel worse. Also, this is ultimately the parents' choice if their kids want to be-- if they want their kid to be healthy.

So they've stated that this is health and obesity. We think this is wrong, because it's better for them to have food than to make sure they-- for them to have food. And then they can actually feed for their disadvantaged families than they're having to make sure it's healthy. Later life-- and they also said something about later life. It's not going to change their family's ways just from their being healthy.

Also, you said that it's going to distract the class. This is wrong because there are healthy foods that have preservatives. And you said that there will be less packaging. This is just completely wrong because you can buy salads from the healthy section with a big plastic bottom, with a plastic top. So it's not an-- all these plastic-y-- with the mayo in the plastic.

[bell dings continuously]

This is not true. So that-- for those reasons, that's why I'm proud to negate.

[applause]

EMILY: OK. So from a coaching perspective, something to take away from this speech that I thought was done really well was the fact that this third negative speaker is not afraid to add depth to rebuttal that might have been touched upon by earlier speakers in her team. So don't be afraid to re-rebut a point that maybe you feel like your team has briefly rebutted before if you think that, say, one of your earlier speakers didn't have time to explain the rebuttal in enough detail, maybe because they had substantive material to go through and things like that.

This speaker does a really good job adding that kind of sophistication. For instance, she rebuts, again, this point about the fact that children will just eat more junk food at home because they'll have cravings. That might sound like something we've heard before, but she actually spends a bit more time explaining it in detail than her earlier speakers did. And that's something that is totally good and not a waste of time at all. So that's something to take away for your rebuttal for future debates as well.

TONY DAVEY: So as an adjudicator, though, there were moments where she did that development, and added that extra information, and it didn't work out as well during the rebuttal. And it happened because she didn't sound like she was responding properly to what the affirmative said. Unto her heading, let's talk about disadvantaged families and disadvantaged parents, she did, on the face of it, a good job of developing the way that disadvantaged families might struggle. She added rural families, for instance, and talked about the drought. So that's kind of the kind of expansion that Em was talking about.

The problem though is that the affirmative have already responded to this idea about disadvantaged people by saying that, once we make this rule, the market will kind of change. There'll be a demand for cheaper, healthier food. And we can expect the prices to come down. Now, by no means was that a mic drop moment at an economics symposium. But in this debate, it's a believable thing that's been said about prices.

So the way, as an adjudicator, I've heard all of that-- I've heard the negative say poor families will be disadvantaged and unable to feed their kids lunch at school. I've heard the affirmative come back and say, long-term, prices will come down and they'll have access to this really healthy food. And then I've heard, finally, the negative get back up again and say poor people won't have access to this food. They haven't responded to that idea that the affirmative gave us that, long-term, we'll see much cheaper food for these disadvantaged people. So it's really important you do respond to the latest part of the argument.

And as an adjudicator, I have to say to myself, I believed it when you said this would be bad for disadvantaged people. Then I believed the affirmative when they said, actually, prices would come down. And then I haven't had a response from you, even though you went back and were really good on how this might be bad for disadvantaged people. So if I'm asking myself who won that debate, the affirmative won that chunk of the debate. They made me believe that disadvantaged people in the long run would have prices come down and be able to afford healthy food.

PAT: Lastly, as a coach, I just wanted to say this speaker did a pretty good job of breaking the debate into three kind of manageable chunks, where she could really get into the content. So the three chunks she kind of chose were, first, the health of kids and their ability to focus in class, second, the impact of the model on disadvantaged people specifically, and, third, the role of parental choice and why we should or shouldn't prioritise that in the debate. It's a really good habit to get into as a third speaker-- to break an entire debate into those three or maybe even two key areas, where you can really delve into some detail in those questions.

And you know what I meant for this speaker? I meant that she didn't have time to get to her summary. And we don't really care about that. Because in the context of these questions, first of all, a lot of the time, her team's responses were kind of factors in how she talked about the other team's material. And it's not as if that material wasn't there. And even if that weren't the case, and even if, in all those three questions, she was just rebutting the hell out of the other team, we would be absolutely OK with that because that's her single most important job for negative.

TONY DAVEY: OK. Hope that was helpful. We'll hand you back over now to the adjudicators. And you can watch the decision in what I think was a really, really close debate and one of the really great Primary School State Debating Championships debates that we've seen. So I hope that was useful. And yeah, we'll talk to you soon.

[applause]

ALEX DE ARAUIO: Awesome. So firstly, obviously it is a huge achievement to get up in front of a massive crowd of people and give the debate that we just saw. But it's an even bigger achievement to make it to the finals of this competition in itself, because that means you have to go through the 10 best debating teams in primary school in New South Wales. And that is amazing. You have to go through two-- three gruelling days of debating. These teams had to go through a gruelling semi-final. And I think they absolutely deserve a second round of applause for the debaters.

[applause]

All three adjudicators on that panel agree that this was an absolutely incredible debate. And in particular, we thought that the delivery of all six speakers was absolutely outstanding. We thought that the rebuttal and comprehensiveness of rebuttal from both teams was absolutely incredible. They refused to give anything up throughout the whole debate. And the fact that every speaker was trying to tussle on pretty much every single important part of the debate, all through the end, from the very start was a real credit to both teams that we saw today.

We also thought, finally, that the range of arguments from both teams was really impressive. We didn't just hear the standard, predictable arguments about a small group of children. We heard arguments about other groups of children. And we thought that both teams were really good at expanding the debate into groups of people who you wouldn't ordinarily think about, who wouldn't be at the forefront of your mind, but nonetheless were definitely important and really great to bring up. So we thought they did an incredible job there.

However, while we thought this debate was incredibly high-quality, we didn't think it was without its flaws. And in particular, a few stood out for us. So the first was the teams needed to be a bit more aware inherent contradictions in their case. So the one that stood out for us the most was both teams were very unclear about how much money and how much availability they had to access junk food, both in a world with junk food at school and both without.

So we heard from-- that kids right now would have heaps of money and eat junk food. But when it's banned, they'll magically have no money to buy it elsewhere. And on the other side, we heard that kids right now have no money and can't eat junk food because they're responsible. But when it's bad, they'll magically get all this money. And they'll be able to buy it everywhere at every street corner. So just be really careful about contradictions in your case, especially when they relate to two very important points.

The second thing that we thought teams could have done a little bit better is to keep arguments going. So in particular, from the affirmative, we thought that was a really great argument about educational benefits, which ironically was the very first argument in the debate and wasn't really brought up as the debate went on. But secondly, from the negative, we thought ideas like affordability and how people couldn't afford this food could also have been developed a little bit later as it went on. So if you have a really good argument, make sure to try and bring it up with all speakers.

The final piece of feedback that we'll give to both teams is to really weigh up at the end of each argument why that argument is important. So we had arguments which related to a big group of people. We had arguments which related to small, but important, groups of people. And it was really up to both teams to make sure that they weighed those two groups against each other and explained in detail why those things were important.

So the way we saw this debate was in three issues. The first was did students have a right to take unhealthy foods to school. The second was how do unhealthy foods impact students' health. And the third was how unhealthy foods impact students' education.

On the first, on whether they have a right, affirmative tells us that they don't because they can't provide informed consent to the harms because they're unaware of the consequences, they're harming others around them, they're affected by peer pressure, and they haven't developed the proper mental capacity. In response, negative tell us that the parents can regulate consumption and advise children about the risks, and that kids to be educated at school. But we thought the affirmative did a slightly better job of actually painting a realistic picture, through clear examples of how kids would see a bunch of lollies at school, and not be able to control themselves, and have a bunch, as opposed to the largely abstract, kind of logical, abstract pictures that we got from the negative team.

However, the negative team do also tell us that parents should have the freedom of choice to give their kids whatever they want because some unhealthy food, especially, are cultural or convenient. Affirmative respond to this throughout their case when they say that most food is probably fine, it's almost exclusively healthy, and that you can give them whatever you like on weekends. So at the end of this issue, we thought we didn't necessarily have a right to eat junk food. And it may be more responsible to get rid of it. But certainly, that wasn't enough to decide the debate. What was more important was how unhealthy foods impacts students' health.

So affirmative tell us that Australia has an obesity problem, which starts at school, and removing unhealthy food will massively reduce it and also lead to long-term healthy habits. The negative team have a few responses. They tell us that it's important to get some fats and salts, and also that healthier foods also might have some harmful things, like preservatives.

The panel thought here that affirmative, again, painted a slightly better and clearer picture of how specifically sugar would make you distracted, and hyper, and a little bit crazy, whereas the harm of things like preservatives was left a little bit more unexplained and a little bit more ambiguous. And especially, given that affirmative tell us that other foods have things like low levels of fats and salts, it was unclear how the harm would be big enough to have a significant effect on those children.

But negative also tell us that it would be most important that parents would just give them some sort of fatty foods or unhealthy foods on the weekends. Here, affirmative are able to tell us that parents wouldn't just cave in if they did love their kids. And the clear benefit that they outlined of health in schools was a little bit more crystallised and a little bit more explained in detail, as were many points from the affirmative team, compared to the idea that parents would just be giving them whatever they wanted on weekends. So we thought that there was some considerable health benefit to be had for the majority of school kids.

However, negative then give us three more points of [inaudible]. So they firstly tell us the parents might provide something which is slightly unhealthier, but allows them to eat food. Because for many disadvantaged families, the alternative for those people is nothing. Affirmative give us a few responses, especially the second speaker. And they tell us that we would rather value health over money, even if it is expensive, and more importantly that if heaps of people are buying junk food-- or healthier food rather, that prices would go down. And we thought this was quite clever and needed some sort of response from team negative.

Secondly, negative team tells us that it's medically necessary for some kids and that some children need to bring sugar into school. We think affirmative definitely could have done a better job of responding to this. And we think negative are right in telling us that this group is important. But they left it unclear how large this group was.

And we thought that, overall, given that the affirmative were able to point to health benefits for pretty much every student at school, that negative could only point to a small group of kids, it was unclear, given how small they presumably were, how important that they would be. So while this might be harmful to some kids, we thought the big benefits of health of the majority slightly outweighed this.

Finally, on how unhealthy foods impact student education, we heard from the affirmative firstly that unhealthy foods are giving kids too much energy, which attracts them in class, and that even one student playing up means the whole class can't learn. And we thought that, while the affirmative didn't do as well a job as they could have of keeping this in the debate, we thought similarly that negative could have responded to a little bit more. And we thought that ultimately there would be some educational benefit to the classroom, at least, to getting rid of junk food.

So ultimately, what we believe as a panel is that, in terms of principle, people didn't necessarily have the inherent right to eat junk food. And indeed, the health benefits and educational benefits to the majority of school children was enough to slightly outweigh the serious benefits, which would unfortunately only accrue to only a small group of people. So because of this, in an incredibly high quality and incredibly close debate, we have narrowly given it to the affirmative team.

[applause]

DYLAN HUYNH: A speaker will now congratulate the winning team.

LUKE DIGGELMANN: Good job, guys. You did a really good job. As said, it was very, very close. Hey, we all made it to the finals. Good job.

[applause]

DYLAN HUYNH: A speaker from the winning team will now respond.

MAX TANCRED: You guys are such a strong team. It was such a close debate-- probably our closest one in the whole competition. And yeah, you're an amazing team. And we thought that you put up a really good fight. And also, we would like to also thank all the other teams in making this competition so close and so enjoyable to debate against all the other teams.

[applause]