Video transcript
NSW Premier's Debating Challenge 2019 - Years 9 and 10 final

TAHMINA RAHINY: Thank you, Mr. Marshall. Welcome to the 2019 state final of the Premier's Debating Challenge for years 9 and 10, for the Teasdale trophy. This competition began in 1950, with the donation of a trophy by Charles and Fred Teasdale, for an annual debating competition at intermediate level between high schools on the North Shore. Over the years, it has expanded into a statewide competition.

SATIMAAH SHABAAZ: This year, almost 400 teams of years 9 and 10 students, representing both metropolitan and non-metropolitan schools, competed against each other, demonstrating the wide appeal of debating, and its evolution into an activity pursued by schools and students from all backgrounds. On your programme, you will see listed the names of the schools that won their divisions, as well as those that went on to win their regions. Congratulations to all of those schools for their success in this prestigious competition.

TAHMINA RAHINY: Today's debate is between Orange High School and Armidale Secondary College. This is the first time at the state finals for both of these schools. Though remarkably, both teams did meet two years ago at the years 7 and 8 championship tournament at the University of Sydney, so they're old foes. It's also noteworthy that, for what we think might be the first time ever, two regional teams are debating today, having knocked out their metropolitan opponents on the way to the final.

SATIMAAH SHABAAZ: The affirmative team from Orange High School is, the first speaker, Angela Weckert, the second speaker, Ethan Delaney, the third speaker, Cheyenne Sciascia, and the fourth speaker, Abigail Kittler. The negative team from Armidale Secondary College is, the first speaker, Ella Vu, the second speaker, Casey Rainger, the third speaker, Rubi Ainsworth, and the fourth speaker, Fynn Eastwood.

TAHMINA RAHINY: The adjudicators for this final are Tony Davey, the speaking competition's assistant for the New South Wales Department of Education, Alex de Araujo, the winner of last year's Premier's Debating Challenge for years 11 and 12, and Elinor Stephenson, who went one better and won the National Schools Debating Tournament a year earlier.

Each speaker may speak for 8 minutes. There will be a warning bell at 6 minutes, with two bells at 8 minutes to indicate that a speaker's time has expired. A bell will be rung continuously if a speaker exceeds the maximum time by more than one minute.

SATIMAAH SHABAAZ: The topic for this debate is, 'That we should ban employers from ever firing their employees for expressing their personal beliefs.' Now, please welcome the first speaker, Angela, to open the debate.

ANGELA WECKERT: Chairperson, adjudicators, ladies and gentlemen, the topic today is, 'That we should ban employers from ever firing their employees for expressing their personal beliefs.' This is undeniably the case. To begin with, I'll just make a few definitions.

Expressing is showing or talking about a person's beliefs, whether on social media or in person. And personal beliefs are any belief that a person may have. However, if expressing these beliefs would cause significant damage to a company or a business, there will be the option to fire people. This will be expanded on in our model.

Today, I will be talking about how the beliefs of employers don't and shouldn't come above the beliefs of employees. How free speech is so important in our society and should be reflected in our workplaces. The limited financial impacts of personal beliefs being expressed. The reduction of bias. And job stability. My second speaker will be expanding on the mentioned points, as well as the future of jobs.

Now, I'll start on my model. We would ban firing people as soon as feasibly possible. And if we can't do that, we would have it done by the end of 2021. But we will try our hardest to get it done, because it is such an important issue. This would be Australia-wide for the same reasons, it's incredibly important.

We would enlist an investigative team for a couple of different cases, where we might need to look into what actually happened. If an expression of personal beliefs is determined to be damaging to a business or company, we would be allowed to fire people. Because this counts as defamation, which is a separate crime which can already be punished.

This will be proved by going to the committee and looking at the decreases in profit, and sponsors pulling out of things like sporting clubs. The sponsors' thing will be especially important to sporting clubs and other very public facilities.

There will also be case-by-case investigative teams for claims of being fired for personal beliefs. If it is proved that someone was fired for their personal beliefs, they would be re-employed, or there would be assistance to help re-employ them elsewhere if they don't feel comfortable going back. And on a case-by-case basis, we could also include other punishments if it was required, or if it was a repeat offence

I will now go into my main substantive. Firstly, an employer's beliefs don't come before the beliefs of the employees, which is what the status quo has. The only reason that an employer would fire an employee for expressing their personal beliefs is because the employer doesn't agree with it.

As we've already talked about, the financial impact is negated in our model. How is this actually reasonable under any circumstances? By allowing the status quo, we're saying that employers have a higher and more valued belief than the employees. And if the employer doesn't agree with the beliefs of the employees, or something they say, then the employer has the freedom to punish them because of this.

In no way are the employers higher up in society, except for the fact that they have worked more and put more time into this company. Personal beliefs do need to be respected, not necessarily agreed with. And by putting our model in place, we can ensure the security and safety of employees' personal opinions without them being disregarded.

Secondly, free speech is such a massive and important part of our society that the status quo is neglecting it in so many ways. When we consider the fact that our nation is a nation of freedom and free speech, why would we allow employees to be fired over expressing their personal beliefs when it has no financial impact? And at the employers' discretion, as I've already talked about.

Our democratic society is based on free speech. We have the option to choose who we are going to allow to express us, and we can go talk to them about what we believe in, our own freedom of speech, to have it expressed publicly. By not having this in the workplace, we are really just negating the importance of free speech in our society.

Thirdly, peaceful personal beliefs don't have enough of a financial impact, if expressed peacefully, to justify firing someone. If an employee is expressing personal beliefs on things such as, I don't know, marriage isn't something that they would believe would work for them, there isn't going to be a significant financial impact. That does just prove that if there is a firing, it is based on the employer, not the employee. That is exactly what we are against. If there is no justification except for, my point is more superior because I pay you, it shouldn't be the case.

Fourthly, this model would reduce bias in our workplaces. Not even allowing the ability for an employer to fire employees because of their personal beliefs, mean that there is a decrease in bias in the workplace. Because an employer does have the bias of their own personal beliefs in firing someone, and just in general. Jobs are not being taken away for unreasonable circumstances caused by the employer's personal beliefs. This hypercritical cliche can be decreased with our model and change the diversity in the workplace for the better.

Lastly, job stability is really massive in this topic. With almost a fifth of our population unemployed, we need jobs and employers that don't oppress or fire people for expressing these beliefs. It's extremely hard for citizens to integrate into the workforce, if they are allowed to be fired for personal beliefs. Job stability is essential to the economy and extremely important, which is why we shouldn't let expressing personal beliefs be a barrier to earning an income and saving.

When we're talking about job stability, it also comes under minorities. For example, Indigenous people are much more likely to be unemployed than Caucasian people. And what we are doing is, we're saying that these people's beliefs can-- sorry, let me rephrase that-- Indigenous people are more likely to have beliefs that may clash with the beliefs of a Caucasian person, such as them having rights, because racism is a massive thing in our society, unfortunately.

When talking about job stability, again, we're saying, look, my opinion as your employer, in this case, would be that you're wrong, get out, which we just don't think is a reasonable point that should be allowed to happen in our society. In conclusion, I am proud to affirm. Thank you.

ELLA VU: We have to argue that, currently, in regards to today's biggest issue of this debate is employee welfare and safe working conditions. The status quo is functioning perfectly fine. As of now, employers have the power to remove individuals for expressing discriminatory beliefs in order to improve the workplace for other employees. But the affirmative want to stop this, consequently creating working environments to the detriment of their employees.

If we look at the affirmative's case, they brought up how voicing personal beliefs, such as, oh, I don't believe marriage is something I'd want to do, isn't a detriment to the financial stability of a business. Yet, when these beliefs can become discriminatory, it can have a massive impact on said financial stability. These personal beliefs can be incredibly damaging to other employees, thus decreasing employee productivity, or, thus, affecting profits and profitability in the workplace, unlike what the affirmative said.

They also brought up the importance of free speech in Australia, especially in the workplace. Free speech-- well, you're legally allowed to say whatever you want; you won't be persecuted by the government. But that doesn't mean that you won't experience consequences from other people. Other people are allowed to be upset, or be affected by said beliefs. Free speech doesn't just allow you to say whatever you want without people not having the power to react and be affected. Free speech is OK, until it persecutes someone's existence.

They also began by saying that you can fire people who express damaging beliefs for the company. This admits that some people should be fired for their beliefs. Yet, they also said that they shouldn't. And also, only firing people for the reason that it's detrimental to the company isn't really ethical. What about the actual people being affected? It shouldn't just be about the company and profit, the employee should be valued, especially with their well-being.

They also discussed how employers, when they're given this power to fire people for their beliefs, are in a position to project their beliefs onto this. Employers aren't really given this godlike ability to just fire people because they don't agree with them.

There's the Anti-Discrimination Act, meaning that employers really can't fire people for things like their sexuality, or their religion, or their race. It just isn't true. Employers don't have that much power. Saying that employers go, you're wrong, get out, isn't exactly the case, because there's the Anti-Discrimination Act in place, preventing employers to fire their employees for invalid reasons.

Onto our case. In today's debate, I will be discussing the social implications of the affirmative's model and pre-existing legalities surrounding this issue. Our second speaker will be discussing the logistics, how unwanted and unnecessary this change is, and examples of discrimination solved through the current status quo.

Currently, workplace bullying is prevalent in our everyday society. However, the status quo allows employers to fire those offenders who bully, harass, and negatively impact the welfare of fellow employees. This is a more than adequate way of dealing with the harassment in the workplace, and will help employees to feel safe and comfortable, so that they can work effectively.

The opposition's model will only serve to create a blockade for employers, limiting their options when it comes to dealing with workplace harassment. Would an employer prefer an offender of workplace harassment to be fired under the status quo, or a dedicated, hard working victim of said harassment to quit under the opposition's model?

Under the status quo, not only are workplaces a safe environment, but workers can work without disruption, increasing productivity and profit. The affirmative's model does nothing at all to improve workplace welfare. It, in fact, makes it even worse by banning employers from taking action to improve their business's safety and comfortable environment for employees to work within.

In addition to this, as of now, workplace well-being is taken extremely seriously in our society. And we can see its prevalence through the numerous acts put in place to ensure this. In the past couple of decades, so much work has been put into evolving and improving effective laws, such as the Anti-Discrimination Act, in order to keep up with contemporary society.

Unlike what the affirmative wants you to believe, this means that someone legally can't be fired for things such as gender, race, or sexuality. But discriminatory employees can be, because they're the ones in violation of that law. I think we can all agree that employees in violation of these guidelines should have appropriate action taken against them. And if it's termination from that business, then so be it.

With the hypothetical implementation of the affirmative's model, employers are disarmed from that tool, thus causing victims of discrimination within the workplace to be vulnerable to verbal abuse. And employers can no longer do anything to prevent this, because of the affirmative. The ability to fire an offender of workplace bullying will only be used as a last resort.

Obviously, other measures will be put in place beforehand to stop the bullying and help mend the damaged relationship between the offender and the victim. Yet, if things escalate, employers can legally take appropriate action and fire mentioned offenders. But when the affirmative's model is put into place, it's legally impossible to completely ensure the security. That is why I'm proud to negate.

ETHAN DELANEY: Good morning, chairperson, members of the audience. Before I begin my main substantive, I'd like to point out a few discrepancies that we found with the other team's case. They mentioned the Discriminatory Act. The discriminatory beliefs are in no way the only type of belief.

Other beliefs are also important and have been used as a reason for employers to fire an employee. Although there may be laws against it, there is currently too many people not following these laws, and people getting persecuted and kicked out of their jobs for expressing peaceful beliefs. And there's no way to actually stop these unlawful fires.

They said that opinions can affect other employees. And though this is true, there are millions of beliefs out there. Being shown them and experiencing those beliefs is not bullying, it's about building resilience and acceptance for other cultures and other people out there. When it becomes persecution and bullying, then that is not allowed. And that is not under our model, that we're protecting bullies.

Workplace harassment, they mentioned. It is not expressing one's beliefs. It is a form of bullying when you attack someone else, and continually damage them, and put them down, which is not what we're promoting in our model in any way. The negative are painting a picture of workplaces being full of abuse and bullying, and that people are shoving their beliefs down other people's throats, and it's an awful place. This is not the case, and this is not our model. Our model protects people who speak up, and want to have a voice, and put their beliefs out there. And that is not negative for anybody.

They mentioned the Anti-Discrimination Act already in place. We've already mentioned, this is not enough. People are still getting fired for showing what they believe and expressing their beliefs. Our model is going to be put in place to protect against this, and give another safeguard to protect against future job security, which I'll expand on later and is very important. When people stop persecuting or bullying, then it's no longer a peaceful expression of beliefs. Bullying in workplaces has hundreds of ways to be dealt with, and that is not what our model is stopping.

If financial stability is affected by the discriminatory beliefs, then it would be covered under our model. We have stated in our model that if the financial stability is affected because of somebody putting out their negative beliefs, then there are ways to stop this, and with the investigative teams in our model, that are already mentioned, to find out what's happening.

The negative team wants you to believe that our model just states that people are not allowed to be fired. However, we have stated that the investigative teams, and case-by-case investigation that ensures the safety of the workplace and measure whether it's worth firing, is in place to protect diversity and people's voices.

A big example of persecution recently was sexuality. People who could come out, did. There's lots of cases of them being turned down, being forced out of their jobs, only because of their belief and not because they did something that deserves them being kicked out of their job. That's a big example for what our model is trying to protect. Our model is eliminating bias and stereotypes.

I'd like to begin now onto my main substantive. Members of the audience, chairperson, employers' beliefs do not come first. In our society, our individual voices should not be quieter than that of the voices of the large corporations. We are all equal. But this isn't the case.

Solely, due to their wealth, and from that, their power, the corporations and businesses have a much larger say than the rest of the population. Surely, everyone's opinion is worth the same. And our model is making sure that it is worth the same, and that we do not get persecuted for saying it.

We wanted to put forward some examples of personal beliefs. There is religion, thoughts on experiences and ongoing matters, sexuality, political outlooks, and race. Today, in my points, I will discuss how employers are not more important than employees. Whether we all should be equal. The employees can censor themselves. And how the job stability of our future workforce is of the utmost importance.

Everyone deserves a say in today's society. And with increased anxiety over job security, we need safeguards in place for the regular person's livelihood. With the record low of 14% of adults unemployed, job security is still a huge issue. The workforce is changing, evolving. Leading experts say that in our future, we are going to have an average of 10 jobs in our lifetime.

10 different employers, 10 different jobs, and all throughout one life. And with so much uncertainty and change for our future, we need all the safeguards we can get for holding onto our jobs, and protecting our job and future security. With such a myriad of jobs and opportunities, we need protection for workers and their future.

Imagine Tim, just for an example. Tim is working, and he's part of a small minority. Tim posts on social media, or something, that he's celebrating a holiday, or something, within his beliefs. Maybe he's taking a day off work, because that's a public holiday for his religion. But the business disagrees, and then fire him.

Then, he goes for his new job, re-applies, but that black mark on his reputation, on his resume, sticks with him. The new business sees that he was fired and that he did not come to work that day. And they're going to not give him another job, so his future is greatly negatively affected.

Also, with social media increasing in prevalence, everyone can have a very public voice. And you can never detract the message that you put out there. Anything you put out there is out there for life, and it can scar you for life if it's something negative. It's following about you, like a dark cloud over you, that's affecting your options for a future life.

We know the dangers of social media. They are drilled into all of us from a young age. But people still make mistakes, and often. And we need safeguards for these mistakes, so they don't dictate and ruin our future. We aren't protecting criminals, but we are protecting our population and our workforce. Our model protects our workforce and their future, which is extremely important.

Also, employers have an extremely large amount of power. Employees, underneath them, live off the money that they work hard for. However, in our status quo, employees are allowed to be fired for expressing their personal beliefs. There's nothing hard enough to stop this from occurring.

This can range from supporting the LGBT+ community, or supporting immigrant migration, or their different religions. What about that is OK? It should not be that you can have the option to fire someone out of their beliefs and expressing those beliefs. We cannot allow regular people being fired due to them expressing their own beliefs.

In conclusion, regular people have the right to free speech and must be able to express their beliefs without fear of losing their jobs due to an employer who disagrees. Job stability is a major issue in society, and our model provides much needed support and benefits for the workforce, alleviating the fear of losing their jobs over expressing themselves. And that is why I'm proud to affirm.

CASEY RAINGER: OK, so let's break down the affirmative's case to what they've told us so far. They told us about the bias, freedom of speech, and diversity of workers. As well as job stability and safeguards that are protecting our jobs. These are the reasons why we disagree with these arguments.

They told us that there are other reasons than discriminatory reasons that employers would need to fire an employee. We believe that these cases are so hard to come by that they aren't relevant to this debate. The main reasons why people are fired are because they're endangering the workplace environment.

The affirmative keep telling us that people continue to get fired for their beliefs, and how it is unreasonable for this to happen. Throughout this debate, we haven't heard an actual case or example where this has occurred. They keep simply making up hypotheticals to cover up the fact that this does not happen.

They told us that investigative teams will monitor cases which people will be needed to be fired with. I'm sorry, but this is just unneeded. The status quo avoids all of this. With the affirmative's model, they are wasting time, resources, and the business's money on investigative teams, which can and will be avoided with the status quo.

They talked about job stability. This massive crisis within job stability is, firstly, exaggerated, and, secondly, is not caused by employers willy-nilly firing people for not liking the same muesli bar as them. Therefore, we believe that this point is irrelevant to the topic.

They told us that employers can be biassed with the status quo. We believe that if-- sorry-- we believe that this is unlikely, if not impossible, for an employer to fire a hard worker for unethical and unwanted reasons. Employers want hard workers for their business, because they want their business to thrive, right? Why would they fire someone that is doing the job properly and not endangering the workplace and overall environment? Bias doesn't help the workplace, so why would it be there.

They told us that the only reason employers would fire their employees for expressing their personal opinion is because they don't agree with the opinion. We believe that employers more than likely will listen to employees' opinions. But if they are damaging to an individual, our case allows employers to put a stop to it.

Today, we are here to discuss whether or not employers should have the right to fire their employees for their personal opinions. As a negative, we undoubtedly agree that the employers should have the choice to fire their workers for a legitimate reason, if necessary. We see the opposition's model as a messy way to cover up bullying in workplaces.

Currently, employers wish to keep valuable workers on. They aren't wanting to unnecessarily fire their employees for moral reasons. That's unethical. But if they see racial and homophobic abuse, or unjust verbal conduct, they should have the right to fire the offenders. Because the main point of this debate is employee welfare. This is the main thing we wish to address with this debate. This is the key thing that matters, not only in a business, but in an ever-changing society.

My first substantive is how employers will continue to stop homophobic abuse in their workplaces. Currently, we don't see a huge concentration of LGBT citizens being bullied in their workplace, because employers have the right to remove any violators who they deem a bad influence for the business or employees. We aren't saying the people can't have their beliefs or opinions, but we believe that they shouldn't be able to voice these opinions as they decrease workplace and workers' efficiency.

A good example of the effectiveness of the status quo in place is the Israel Folau case. He signed a professional contract saying he can't voice-- sorry-- a discriminative opinion or he will lose his place in all codes of rugby unions. He decided that he had the right of free speech and bullied homophobic people through the media.

We believe that people have the right of speech, but this doesn't come without consequence. Israel Folau was then removed from rugby for the vocalisation of his views. This was the most favourable outcome to occur. With the affirmative's model, Israel Folau would have continued to play and voice these cruel opinions without punishment. Not only would rugby union as a whole suffer, but LGBT citizens would too.

We must continue with employers being able to fire employees for their unjust opinions that puts workers' welfare at risk. Because in reality, the businesses want a bully harassing workers, making them uncomfortable and decreasing work efficiency, or the ability to fire them to make a safer workplace environment. With our case, you can see how workers' well-being is benefited, and how the affirmative's model does nothing but disarm employers from keeping their environment safe.

My next understanding is regarding the logistics of the affirmative's model, and how it's not realistic, nor being wanted. Firstly, the logistics of their model is unjust. With their model, workers will be able to conduct violent opinions in physical forms, cyber, and any other form. This is completely discouraging for workers that may be affected by this, due to the fact that they could do nothing about it. They can't report it to the manager-- sorry, not the manager, the employer, with the opposition's model.

With the status quo, they can report this abuse to the employer, and then they will be fired, if necessary. But with the affirmative's model, this cannot occur. It benefits no one. Their model doesn't allow working environments to stay safe and keep the workers' well-being positive. As well as this, there has been no outcry from the workers, employers, or the Australian general public, for this change to occur. Why is this? Because they feel safest with the status quo.

There has been no outcry for the affirmative's model to be put into place, because it isn't needed. The affirmative are looking over this, but we believe that the whole system is the best it can be now. Employers must be able to fire employees who vocalise unjust personal beliefs. We have to argue that this isn't an outrageous stand to take.

Now, let's discuss the actual effects of the hypothetical information of the affirmative's model. By introducing legislation that places potential punishment over employers who wish to fire someone for things such as sexist, homophobic, or racial views, we're simply putting employers in a position where they don't have the option to regulate toxic working environments. We are stripping employers of one of the main things they're trusted to do.

This is, firstly, an unwanted change, and, secondly, extremely controlling in places where it is unneeded and unnecessary. By introducing the affirmative's model, we're adding an unnecessary element of government control to the world of employment. What we mean by this is that the legislation of the affirmative's proposition is extremely over-regulating employment. Placing this looming control over employees' rights is unfair and exclusively working to our stakeholders' disadvantage.

Finally, I'd like to discuss the stakeholders in this debate. With the opposition's model, the employers lose control over their workplace and allow bullies, as such, to roam the corridors without being stopped. With the status quo, employers have control over this and are able to monitor the unwanted opinions that occur in their workplace.

Another stakeholder is the victim employees; the employees that receive this unwanted, I guess, opinions. These are the most affected stakeholders, as they cannot protect themselves from the verbal opinions that relate to them. They are on the receiving end of unwanted harassment with the affirmative's model, which we can stop with the status quo.

Finally, the employers who are saying they're unwanted opinions, I guess, they will continue to do this with the affirmative's model, as there is no reason for them to stop, which is unwanted not only in the workplace, but in society as a whole. And this is why I'm proud to negate.

CHEYENNE SCIASCIA: Good morning, adjudicators, audience, and chairpersons. To begin my speech today, my team has mentioned the importance of banning employers from firing employees for expressing their personal beliefs. Before I begin my main substantive, my team talked about improving employee well-being, which was contrasted with a different way of improving employee well-being provided by the negative team, which was their status quo. However, it's been thoroughly discussed throughout the debate which one is better.

We have a model, which is the status quo, that has holes in it. Technically, employers can still fire employees based on their personal beliefs. Our model is where this discrimination cannot occur. The negative team have mentioned that this causes a loophole for discrimination and bullying to occur. However, this is still bullying, which is not tolerable and punishable, unlike mentioning personal beliefs of the employees. And the anti-discriminatory law is obviously not good enough, because things like this is still happening. As mentioned by the negative team, workplace bullying is still happening, and we agree.

My first speaker talked about our model, which under it, we are punishing offenders who fire employees for expressing personal beliefs, whilst the negative team mentioned discriminatory beliefs impacting people in the workplace. However, discriminatory beliefs are bullying and not expressing a personal opinion. We mention this in our model, the difference between the two. And also the difference between defamation and personal beliefs, because it impacts the business.

Of course, we should be firing or investigating people that are discriminating against people. And we have our model with investigative teams to ensure the safety of workers, and measure whether it's discriminatory or expressing a personal opinion. If the anti-discriminatory laws are effective, then how is workplace bullying so massive at this point of time?

The opposition claims that no discrimination happens, and still say that workplace bullying and discrimination is happening at the same time. They also know these laws aren't foolproof. They still allow discrimination to pass through. Our model eliminates much of this, which allows people to have no fear or job loss from discrimination.

Another issue is that discrimination can barely be defined. Sure, it's bias against a person, but how far does this go? And what kind of discrimination can this be called? Under the status quo, discrimination is defined by the employer, meaning they can class things as discriminatory beliefs that would be different to another person's. And this is what gives an employer power over a normal employee.

Also, they mentioned the example of Israel Folau, who would be persecuted under our model, because he would be removed for defamation. And the LGBTQ+ community of Australia has been consistently asking for strong anti-discrimination laws. Our case provides this. Anti-discrimination laws that actually work, this is a massive issue that is ongoing, that the opposition is ignoring and passing it off as a small thing. Many have been fired and nothing has been done. Our model allows that something should be done, because there's obviously a hole in this status quo.

They also mentioned a lot of things that don't really come under personal beliefs. They mentioned violence at one point, and bullying, which, as I said before, we don't really qualify as just mentioning personal beliefs. And even if it was under our model, the employees could be suspended, et cetera. Job security is also not an overrated issue. It is another major issue, and the negative are just ignoring it, and saying it doesn't exist, or it's not affected.

Also, our model benefits all employers. It stops potential drops in profit from defamation and secures the workplace. Employees, it gives an effective system to stop unrighteous firing, and what benefit is not given under our model. Sexist, homophobic, and racist views do have an impact on businesses, which is undeniable from both sides, and still allows people with these views to be taken out of the workplace. We're not just letting that loophole slip through.

Our model, also, negatively affects nobody. Businesses can still punish workers who do wrong things, but they also allow free speech and free beliefs, et cetera. In conclusion, we should ban employers from ever firing employees for expressing their personal beliefs. Under our model, this does not include discrimination or bullying. And for this reason, we are proud to affirm.

RUBI AINSWORTH: OK, so let's take a look at the model presented by the affirmative team. They told us that personal beliefs under their model could include things like religion and sexuality. But they also told us that people wouldn't be discriminated against under their model.

We have to negate this by saying, religion and sexuality are famously one of the two most contentious topics in society right now, and two of the most likely to spark or continue a toxic work environment. They also, in their substantive, mentioned this great hypothetical about Timmy, and we just have to argue that this hypothetical is not strong enough to justify brand-new legislation.

I'd like to talk about some issues and point out some inconsistencies, again, in their case. The issue I'd first like to talk about is the welfare of our stakeholders. We'd like to argue that the main stakeholders in this debate are employers and employees, which is something they didn't really focus on. In the end, they tried to come in and focus on employee welfare, but it was contradicted by previous points in their model, such as the fact that they wanted to focus on the financial impact to companies.

They said that under their model, the only people who would be fired for their personal beliefs would be people accused of things like defamation, in which a business or a company has a negative financial impact. We think this is unethical and not mentioning the needs or feelings involved with people's employees.

They're completely neglecting the effects of aggressive assertion of beliefs that can have on others in a workplace. They brought up this weird point that thinking marriage isn't right for me is going to get you fired. We argue that this is ridiculous and irrelevant to the debate.

They told us that harassment isn't protected under their model; therefore, they can fire people who harass. They didn't mention this in their original model, because they told us that bullying isn't expressing beliefs. We have to argue that this is simply giving bullies and people in favour of discrimination a mask to hide behind.

It means that people can spout things like hate speech, or sexist and racist views, or homophobic views, not particularly directed at someone, and hide behind the fact that it's not bullying, and you can't fire me. Their whole point around that was that isn't bullying, but they also say things like sexuality and religion, as I said, are a fine personal view. They said that asserting opinions in the form of bullying wasn't, which is a contradiction there.

The second issue I'd like to talk about is the legislation and finance kind of thing. They told us in the start that they would re-employ people fired for unjust reasons in regards to personal opinion. We argue that the whole idea of investigative teams that go into investigating people fired for having different views is expensive, unnecessary, and uses a lot of resources that could be better put somewhere else. We also think that by doing this, you're just re-employing people like racists and sexists in different places that'll accept them more.

Then, they also brought up this big point about job stability. We don't think this is a massive issue, as they presented it to be. They told us that job stability was awful in Australia, we're all going to be homeless kind of thing. But we don't think this is completely valid. And we definitely don't think job stability is being affected by employers willy-nilly firing their employees. We just don't think this is that big of an issue.

They told us that people aren't following current laws in regards to discrimination; therefore, the status quo isn't working. To negate this, we have to argue that more diverse workplaces are on the rise. If you look at places like NAB, all their advertisements are showing extremely diverse people, and things like that. We think people are definitely following laws like this. Because if they aren't, it will impact their reputation a lot.

They also gave us this stat of 14% of Australian adults are unemployed, and this is damaging the economy. Under the aff's model, we will see this number rise, as we're protecting people in favour of discrimination and isolating minorities from the security of their jobs. In regards to job stability, we think that, despite the fact that they argued job stability is bad now, it will be worse under their model.

The third issue I'd like to discuss is business progression. They have this really big argument on financial impact, and the fact that the status quo is causing this significant job loss because employers are firing all their employees based on irrelevant views. We don't think this is true. As I mentioned before, under their model, they said they'd only fire people who are financially impacting companies. We don't think this is ethical. And as I said, this is ignoring the needs of the employees, which are literally the backbone of any company.

Again, they told us-- this is a very common theme, as I've been repeating it quite a lot-- they told us that people are currently being constantly fired for their beliefs, and now businesses are falling apart because of it. But once again, this just isn't happening. Workplace bullying, again, they brought that up. We're not saying that they will cause workplace bullying, but it will increase, because you're encouraging discrimination and further legitimising it in workplace situations.

To negate the whole point of employers can fire workers for their opinion, we have to argue that there's mostly a watchdog that regulates reasons an employer can have to fire an employee. We think it's unreasonable to say that employers have the ability to fire people for whatever they want.

The affirmative also discussed how there are many beliefs other than discriminatory opinions that have caused employees to be fired, but we haven't been presented with many examples of this. Are people being fired for liking things like pineapple on pizza? Of course not. But we wouldn't know, because they're not telling us.

When it comes to religious beliefs and such, we've already put forward the idea that it's illegal to fire or refuse to employ a person based on one of these beliefs. And back to Tim, and his dark cloud of religion that's preventing his employment, we believe this is just not realistic in today's society, and especially in Australia's world of employment.

They're talking about the bias the affirmative want to eliminate. This is a really big thing they talked about. But we would have to say it's already thwarted under all the laws currently in place. The aff's model, I would like to stress, is not really changing the status quo. It's not doing anything massive. And as I said, the laws are being currently followed.

Frankly, we just, mainly, have to argue that people being fired due to random personal views is not a big enough issue. It's not really an issue at all. And it's not strong enough to introduce brand-new legislation. Despite what the affirmative would have you believe, employers are not insanely firing their employees left, right, and centre, because that would be detrimental to a company.

To sum up our case, we were supporting stakeholder welfare, an employer's right to fire, as it is part of their job description, the security as the status quo provides to minorities, and safe and productive workplaces. And that is why I'm proud to negate.

ELINOR STEPHENSON: All right, hello. I just want to start this adjudication by congratulating every speaker in this debate for what was, broadly, a really fantastic job. I think that getting to this level, like the state final, is a really big achievement. And just listening to the speeches that we just heard, you can tell that everyone who was in this final is really, really smart and a really good debater.

With that said, as with all debates, this debate had problems. And in this case, there were some significant problems that you might have noticed. We're going to go through just two of them, before we get into the bulk of this adjudication.

The first thing that the adjudication panel thought would have improved this debate a little is to have a lot more examples and case studies. We thought it would have been really helpful in this debate to know who exactly was currently being fired from their work, and what they were being fired for.

And it seems like examples, like Israel Folau, should probably have come out a lot earlier in the debate, rather than at second negative, because those seem like some of the really big ticket items when it comes to workplace discrimination. We thought that this debate would have been clearer if we knew exactly who was generally being affected by this model.

The second piece of feedback is just regarding the model itself. In affirmative's model, they wanted to create some pretty big exceptions for speech, which might be bullying, or which might create financial consequences for workplaces. I guess the thing to say here is that as an affirmative, it's best to be as strong as possible with your model. Because otherwise, sometimes, you end up losing some of your arguments.

We thought in this debate, it seemed like affirmative's freedom of speech argument was a lot less strong when they still let a large number of people be fired for their views. When it comes to models, make sure that you're being as strong as possible. Try not to undercut your own principle by creating large exceptions. With that said, of course, as I already mentioned, everyone was really great.

So how did we think the debate went? Broadly, there were three main questions. The first was, should people have the right to freedom of speech? Affirmatives' claim on a principled level was to say that the right to freedom of speech was important and people should be able to express their opinions.

Negative correctly pointed out here that they were prioritising the financial incentives of companies over people's right to say what they want. They created this exception where some people could not, in fact, say what they wanted to. This made it seem like, actually, maybe, it was OK to sacrifice freedom of speech if that speech was bad.

And negative also pointed out that it was probably principled to stop people from saying things if they had particularly bad consequences. Then the debate became about what those consequences were likely to be. The first main type of consequence that we wanted to talk about in this debate was how this law would affect discrimination in the workplace.

Affirmative's conception of discrimination was that it tended to be about people's identity, for instance, their sexuality or their race. Or about miscellaneous personal beliefs, like their views on marriage. They tried to model out these other types of beliefs that might be harmful to other people, or to the company.

Affirmative tell us that this is a better way to enact anti-discrimination law. But, I think, negative here, points out that it's unclear why this model of anti-discrimination is any more effective than other models of anti-discrimination law that existingly stop people being fired on the basis of their personal identity.

In addition, negative tells us that it would be quite rare that people are banned on the basis of very minor personal opinions, because employers have the incentive to keep good workers and not to have an unstable business. At the end of this section of rebuttal, it seems like affirmative's points about protecting people's identity, or minor personal beliefs, probably aren't the majority of these cases.

Negative then suggests that actually, this debate is about bad workplace behaviour, where people's personal or political beliefs cause others to feel uncomfortable. Affirmative's rebuttal is, firstly, to say that, well, bullying doesn't come under the model because that should be punished separately.

Negative responds, I think quite cleverly, by saying, well, you claim that sexuality, and religion, and political beliefs are personal views, and they can often be discriminatory. That suggests that in order to protect people's personal views, we would have to allow some discriminatory beliefs to go through.

Negative additionally says that this would give people a cloak to hide their discriminatory beliefs behind the defence that they are in fact personal beliefs. That suggests that, in fact, some bad workplace behaviour is definitely relevant to this debate. And I think negative does a particularly good job of explaining why it is important and indeed a duty of employers to protect their employees from feeling uncomfortable or unsafe at work.

Finally, and on a more minor note, there was an issue in this debate about economic effects. Affirmative wants to tell us that it's really important for people to have a stable job, and we shouldn't have people being rampantly fired. I think negative responds to this quite sufficiently by saying, people aren't really rampantly fired, and actually, the main problems behind job stability do not lie in this case. That seems to neutralise, in any case, the economic effects of this model.

At the end of the debate then, although sometimes, people should have a right to freedom of speech, negative sufficiently proved that sometimes, that freedom of speech was used in harmful ways that made people feel unsafe. And they told us that that was what the employer's ability to fire people for, was generally used for.

This ability, this right of employers, was something that was actually quite good for their employees and something that actually protected people from discrimination, rather than allowing employers to enact it. With that said, we awarded the debate, unanimously, as a panel, to the negative team.

ABIGAIL KITTLER: Thank you, guys, so much for debating against us. I think we can both agree that it was really tricky, but we pushed through it. And you guys did an amazing job, really strong arguments, and it was lovely to debate against you. Thank you so much.

FYNN EASTWOOD: I would just like to say thank you, Orange, for coming to Sydney for this. It was a really, really fun debate. Your arguments were amazing. Thank you just so much. And also, thank you, adjudicators, this competition couldn't run without you. And thanks to my team.

SATIMAAH SHABAAZ: Ladies and gentlemen, from Orange High School, please welcome back the first speaker, Angela Weckert, the second speaker, Ethan Delaney, the third speaker, Cheyenne Sciascia, and the fourth speaker, Abigail Kittler. And also their coach, Madison [inaudible].

From Armidale Secondary College, please welcome back, the first speaker, Ella Vu, the second speaker, Casey Rainger, the third speaker, Rubi Ainsworth, the fourth speaker, Fynn Eastwood, and the coach, Fiona Smee.

Finally, would the winning team come to the front of the stage where Paul Marshall and Mary-Ann Coles will present them with the Teasdale trophy as the state champions.

MARY-ANN COLES: Congratulations.

PAUL MARSHALL: Ladies and gentlemen, your winners for 2019, Armidale Secondary College. Give them a round of applause.