Video transcript
NSW Premier's Debating Challenge 2024 –Junior State Debating Championships Final

[intro music]

DYLAN HUGHES: Welcome to the state final of the 2024 Junior State Debating Championships. My name is Dylan, and we also have Lance from the Western region who will be chairperson in this debate. And the timekeepers today are Zoe and Lucy, also from the Western region.

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that we are meeting on the traditional lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. And on behalf of the Department of Education, I want to show my respect for the Elders past, present and emerging of the nation and the First Nations people.

The affirmative team today is South Western Sydney. Their first speaker is Aabisha, second speaker Heidi, third speaker Hirudi, and fourth speaker Mischa. The negative team is from Western Sydney. Their first speaker is Annacemone, second speaker Ekun, third speaker Jacinta and fourth speaker Kareena. The adjudicators for this debate are Neva, Bella and Jeremiah.

The speaking time for this debate is 8 minutes. There will be a warning bell at 6 minutes, 2 bells at 8 minutes, and a continuous bell at 9 minutes. The topic for this debate is that we should require people to look after their elderly parents at home. Finally, please take a moment to make sure all mobile phones are switched off. Now, please welcome the first affirmative speaker to open the debate.

[applause]

AABISHA VARATHARASAN: So first of all, I would like to start off with defining our model. So to define the model, we define elderly individuals as people above 60 who will not be independent, unless medically diagnosed or they have medical issues. After the age of 60, their independence levels will be evaluated. Now, if they are seen as independent or with enough support from partners, they will be re-evaluated at any point until they are actually deemed not independent.

Now, if they are not deemed independent, the elderly are required to live with their children or their guardian. Now, there are also some exemptions in our model. So for example, when someone requires lots of direct medical attention, they can go to aged care facilities, and not only that, but if the home is unsafe or it's not financially unstable. So there's also the fact that medical professionals can also visit homes. And this model does not stop the assistance of medical professionals.

So now I'll be going into the characterisation of elderly individuals. So we characterise elderly individuals as either wise individuals or with low cognitive ability. Now, we believe that elderly individuals with high cognitive abilities would be wise due to the experiences and the fact that they have contributed a lot to society, such as being veterans.

Now, since they have more unique situations that they have faced, they can communicate stories to the younger generation to pass down these stories. This also means that in homes, these wise elderly individuals can pass down these unique messages and lessons to the younger generation. And not only that, but they've looked after their children for a while. So these children have to have a sense of responsibility and also look after their parents as well.

Now, for the elderly with a lower cognitive ability, possibly due to dementia or other issues, they will be able to have immense care as we define low cognitive individuals-- low cognitive function as elderly people who can't make choices or decisions for themselves. In homes, due to the lower cognitive ability, they can become more vulnerable and susceptible to injuries in aged care homes.

In a home that you've lived in for multiple years, you know the floor plan. You've mapped out the place. However, when you move to an aged care facility, these places may not necessarily be mapped out properly. And so this will be extremely difficult for them. They have a high chance to actually injure themselves. They are more vulnerable, mentally, due to the fact that they have cognitive issues.

Secondly, in aged care homes, there's no access to an actual familial support system. And this causes them to not necessarily ask for help. Because the thing is, they have been independent their whole lives, and they wouldn't necessarily want to revert back to the fact that they are dependent now. Due to this, they may become severely injured, and they may stubbornly refuse for help.

Now, we also characterise the elderly as individuals who are immensely connected to their homes. Now, 3 reasons for this is that due to family interconnections. For example, in the houses, they may have had a family member who may have passed away. They may have shared happy memories with them. And so they may not want to get away from those memories. So they would want to stay in those homes. Not only that, but as previously stated, there will be familiarity reasons.

Now, secondly, they will have to find a new support system, as previously said. So if in aged care homes, because of this, they will find a fear of isolation. Now, thirdly, there will be more control on their choices in-- they'll have more control over their choices at their home, rather than in aged care facilities, as in aged care facilities they won't be able to choose what food they get to eat. They won't be able to choose what places they want to explore. And not only that, but this independence is found in these homes, unlike aged care facilities.

Now, we also like to characterise that the elderly are-- we would like to characterise the elderly as the least likely to ask for help due to the fact that they have experienced a sense of independence. However, they may not want to revert back to the feelings of dependence. And they aren't independent with their families. And that is a problem, which is why we are the people. We are the ones who will actually evaluate this and make the decision for them on whether they are independent or dependent or not, and whether they can go to aged care facilities or they can stay at home.

Now, their choice can be infringed upon due to the fact that they may be risking their lives and not asking for help when necessary. And we believe that weighing this, lives are more important than their choice. Not only that, but we would also like to characterise the children as people who would put their elderly parents in aged care homes for practicality, even if they may not want to. So for example, it might be more efficient for the child or the parent-- the child of the elderly parent. Secondly, it can also be easier for the child. So for example, an unstable financial situation.

Now, thirdly, the child doesn't necessarily have to confront the fact that they aren't doing everything to support their parent, which is one of the reasons why they might send their child to aged care facilities. So we believe that elderly people, for these 3 reasons, are currently more likely to end up in homes.

So now I will be going into my first argument about how this is inherently harmful for elderly people, as we define it, to live in aged care facilities or on their own. So first of all, aged care facilities, as we know them, are extremely detrimental to physical and mental health. Firstly, in the status quo, we see 3 main problems in these facilities, which negatively affect elderly individuals' physical health.

So the first reason is that there is a lack of resources in elderly homes, such as the lack of sanitation. So for example, the incontinence-- for example, the incontinence pad changing isn't always as often as it needs to be. And in minor cases we can see dermatological issues in these areas. Now, in extreme cases, we can also see people suffering from bacterial infections and sometimes even going septic and dying.

Now, secondly, there's also a lack of staff. Elderly homes are extremely understaffed due to the fact that they have low pay. And there's also a low demand for the job. And secondly, there's also a social standing of the job and the low pay it offers. Furthermore, simply exemplified by the lack of safe practices and protection. So things like the sanitation, but also protecting the staff from the diseases and the physical harms that are technically inflicted by the cognitively impaired residents.

Now, they all contribute to the cycle of physical deterioration. Now, the lack of sanitation means that elderly people get more physically sick more frequently. And this is true. Immune systems start to lose a lot of resistance to diseases. It would make many sick to be-- it would make many sick as well.

Now, there will be a lack of staff, meaning that elderly people don't have the attention that they may need. For example, always getting a medication on time or getting help to the bathroom for less mobile, but still continent people. So this is true. Now, this is true because the resources are split over a large amount of residents because they aren't living at homes very often.

Now, secondly, so why are aged care centres not effective in promoting mental health of residents? So first of all, there's a lack of community and having to make support system from the start, affecting the way they actually see themselves, thinking of themselves as being isolated, away from their families.

Secondly, there's a lack of independence, which kind of deters this self-confidence that they initially had, because they were initially very independent, but now they are not. And it deters this self-confidence due to them being guilty for taking people's time. Because they have to take care of them, they would feel guilty for this.

Now, thirdly, in these aged care resident homes, now they'd constantly see deaths or see negative physical impacts from other residents. And this can deteriorate the way of aged care homes. And they may want to stay in homes to improve their view.

Now, what are the impacts of this? There's one major impact. Well, first of all, they will have gain of negative-- the negative mental health will lead to an ability to think of the future as a possibility. So because of this, an example is that they won't provide as much stories to the younger generation. And people aren't following this career path, because it doesn't pay enough to cope with the cost of living crisis. Not only that, but, additionally, if not in aged care facilities, it is harmful for elderly people of low independence to live on their own because of less support in case of emergency.

Elderly people, as directly proven, are at more of risk to lower cognitive functioning individuals. This means they are sometimes not in the position to make good decisions for themselves. And thirdly-- for these 2 reasons, we think in the status quo, elderly people deemed with low independence need additional support as well. And these aged care facilities may not necessarily have the resources for this because of these understaffed areas. Now, these problems are inherently prevalent in our aged care facilities. Thank you.

[applause]

ANNACEMONE NASHID: Where the affirmative team went wrong today is by assuming that the elderly would be in better/more sufficient care when at home with their kids, regardless of the circumstances of their set carers. However, we, the negative team, are proud to stand by the status quo where freedom of choice is nurtured and practical responsibility is deliberated and understood.

So for the points allocation, as first speaker, I will be speaking about the inadequate capacity of care for the elderly, and the second one being freedom of choice. And my second speaker will be speaking about financial stress and the safety and accessibility for the elderly.

So the stakeholders we will be speaking about in this debate are, number one, people who are likely to already care about their parents. They still have the option in the status quo to be able to keep their elderly at home. Number 2 being people who are on the fence. So they're not really sure whether or not what they actually want to happen. So it is good that they have the choice. So they would probably want the choice to be able to pick. Do I send my parents to a home, or am I able to keep them?

Number 3 being people who don't want to look after them. So what we'd like to say is, why force them to do this? Why not just give them the choice as shown in the status quo? With number 4 being the elderly and what they actually want.

So before I begin with my 2 points, I will be giving my rebuttals. So on to the first point, so a few things that the affirmative team said, which they went wrong in, so number one being sickness and nurses and aid workers, making it like an unsafe place for the elderly to be at. Number one, we have a very high duty of care in Australia. So obviously, these workers won't be coming to work if they're sick. They have that responsibility. They wouldn't be coming. So that's really not a very fair point to be bringing up.

Now, the next one being the elderly can pass down stories and messages, so this is important that they stay at home. However, these stories, number one, don't always align with today's generational view. Number 2, doesn't always align with the parent's view. So the parents and their kids can sometimes have different views. Number 3 being even if there are some stories, it's not a big enough impact when compared to the freedom of choice and capacity.

Next one being there's no community in aged care homes, depending makes them feel isolated was brought up by the affirmative team. However, that is blatantly untrue. We have a lot of setups in community homes and aged care homes, such as bingo, such as knitting. These things are designed to make aged care homes more enjoyable for the elderly. The affirmative team has gone wrong by painting it in such a negative light, when, really, the whole point of it is to be an appropriate system to look after the elderly.

So on to the lack of support systems-- the affirmative team painted aged care homes, once again, to be not suitable for the elderly. However, the purpose of aged care systems is to provide support for everyone rather than the select few which are targeted by the affirmative team. So now on-- as well as now the affirmative team have came up and basically said aged care is more likely to abuse the elderly and vulnerable stakeholders in our debate, as well as sanitation not being the best.

However, that assumes adults looking after their parents will look after them to the degree at which the opposition speaks of. Even if aged care is somewhat bad, we know there are many checks and balances in place to manage this. For example, there are random checks by the police, as well as the Royal Commission, which is a massive investigation where they go consistently throughout the year to go check in elderly homes, as well as people can report to the police.

And aged care workers, as I said before, have a really high duty of care and are well able to report abuse and informed of what they can and can't say. If you're struggling to understand, an example of this can be like child care. Children are very vulnerable, as are the elderly. So you look at the factors before sending them, like finances, rating and the [inaudible]. So obviously, people won't be sending their parents to terrible homes that have one-star reviews.

So on to my first point being the inadequate capacity of care for the elderly. So what does the status quo currently look like right now? So in the status quo, people are able to make decisions. They're able to choose, hey, I want to keep my parents at home, or I want to send them to an aged care home, depending on what's actually best for them.

So why is this good and beneficial? So with the mechanisms of how this works, it's beneficial because it allows people to make choices that are suitable for them. We're not taking away that choice, which will be talked about more in the next freedom of choice topic.

So what would the world look like should the affirmative team's model occur? So should the aff's model occur, what would happen is we would be taking away that choice from parents. And that is completely not thinking about any of the circumstances that these carers may have, which is more delved into in the second point. But I'll give the list of what they are now. For example, parents with children, parents who work long hours, like doctors, nurses, lawyers, stuff like this, as well as people who just genuinely don't want to look after their parents, which was listed in the stakeholders.

So why is it harmful to force these people to have to look after their parents? So it actually doesn't consider what it would look like living at home with their parents. So one thing to consider is with the elderly living at home, number one, some people may not have the availability to look after their parents. They may not have-- people from low socioeconomic backgrounds, they may not have the area, they may not have the finances, they may not have the capacity because they may also have children. Are we raising children or are they raising their parents?

So for some characterisation, we're going back to the stakeholders. So the people who care about their parents will obviously have a moral obligation to look after their parents. And the people who are on the fence, it really comes down to, are they the best to look after them? Are they equipped with the right things they need to do to be able to look after their parents?

So things like this could be like being able to access the correct medication for their parents, being able to help the parents up and down the stairs. An example of this is many households don't have ramps, so maybe people in wheelchairs. It would be very hard to implement this in households, because the elderly would definitely be disadvantaged, because getting someone to help them up and down the stairs would be something that's very tedious.

So on to the next thing about are nursing and aged care homes positive or negative. So although there are some cases in history about aged care homes maybe being a little bit neglectful, that is only a very small percentage of all aged care homes, when really the majority of aged care homes have high stars and in Australia are very much well monitored, as I said before, and are suitable to look after the elderly.

They accommodate to all the elderly, not just a small percentage. So what I mean by that is elderly with disabilities, elderly with mental disabilities as well, such as dementia. And they're able to really understand what their needs are. So they're able to provide a safe environment where they're able to help them. For example, having ramps everywhere, or for example, having someone to just talk through them when they're having an episode.

They are trained in the medical professional field to be able to help these elderly. Now, if we compare that to a person who has absolutely no medical training, when we actually look at how they're going to be able to deal with it, they're more likely to crash out and not be able to have the emotional capacity to deal with these things, which is why it's so negative.

So why are these benefits important? These benefits are important because we're really making sure that the elderly are cared for, but also the people who have to look after them. Because if we just focus on the elderly benefit and we ignore the carers, then there's going to be a lot of mix up for the carers because the carers are going to be ignored.

So examples, people who work, they don't have time to look after the elderly. So examples of this being people who are doctors. They don't have time to stay home all day to help their parents go up and down the stairs or take them to the bathroom or help them out. It's not about a lack of love. It's really just about having the capacity. So onto the weighing. We believe that aged care homes have many benefits, which ultimately prioritise the health of the elderly versus the affirmative's world. They are only able to provide a marginal benefit for elderly people.

So now onto my second point, which is really just the link. Number one being what is freedom of speech choice and what does it look like? So freedom is what I said before, being able to choose where you put your parents in. So it's beneficial because it refers to the stakeholders again. So back to those people who don't have the capacity to be looking after their parents. It's beneficial to them because they're able to have a suitable schedule without being put on so much pressure. They already have a family to take care of.

So some characterisation is every family is unique, so different circumstances will be different for each person, which I said below. So the model covers up what families should look like. Why are we enforcing a specific family dynamic? It creates a stigma that if you're unable to look after your parents, it makes you a bad person. And you can't get out of it because of the affirmative's model, they'd be stuck looking after their parents all the time.

Now, how does this benefit them if they're just constantly stuck in a loop of being unequipped and unable to actually count for things that genuinely matter? So as well as those who have their-- so I said this earlier, but just to retouch on it, those who have their own moral obligation to look after their parents will have the incentive to do so. So it's really important to understand that under the affirmative model, we're taking away choice.

But when we go to actually look at the risk and reward for us. So the reward for us is definitely greater than the affirmative team, because for the reward is there will always be people who want to look after their parents. Under our model, we're not saying, hey, everyone should be sending their parents to nursing homes or aged care. No, we're saying we should simply just give the parents a choice. We should give the kids who are taking care of them a choice, like their children.

So they should be able to make decisions that are suitable for them, because every family dynamic is different according to the household. So as well as those who are getting negatively affected, and who are they? So people with kids, those who work longer hours, and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. So they're the ones getting mostly impacted, whereas the people benefiting from the affirmative team's model is just a really small percentage.

So to conclude with the weighing, therefore, there are no real benefits from the affirmative team, but rather a lot of harms that infringe on people's freedom of choice, where they're perfectly capable of making decisions that are suitable for them. Therefore, we're very proud to negate.

[applause]

HEIDI NESBITT: I'd like to start by making a few rebuttals against the negative team's case. So firstly, they say that elderly people need freedom of choice, whereas we have already proved that some people don't have the ability to make these good choices for themselves as they are elderly and more susceptible to cognitive function issues. So it's not really fair that we assume that all of them have the freedom of choice given to them, as not all of them can make that decision, which is why we are providing in our model an evaluation of whether someone is or isn't able to make those decisions for themselves, and whether or not they are able to have the physical function to provide for themselves. Otherwise, they need that extra support.

They say that some homes can't handle having an elderly person in the home. They don't have the money, or they have the resources, or they don't have the-- there's some kind of issue. Whereas we've already addressed in our model that there are exceptions to the rule. If someone has some kind of mental health issue that requires extra, additional support, if somebody doesn't have the money to support this, there are exceptions to the model, which we've already pointed out particularly is irrelevant, as of course nothing is going to work for every single case.

But we're saying that this is for the majority of people who do have that kind of support that they need, because not all elderly people need an intense support or 24/7 support. They just need the simple fact that they have their community around them and somebody who cares about them specifically, not just in a home where they have hundreds of people staying in one home. And it's not a ratio of a whole family to one person. It's a ratio of one carer to 3 or 4 or even 10 individuals, where they're not getting that direct support that they can get in a family setting.

They say that people will send their elderly to nice places, to nice homes. So we have a couple reasons that this is not true. Firstly, not everyone can afford a nice home. A lot of people can only afford something very bare minimum, as it can be really expensive for some people.

We also think that it's not true because we don't have-- they haven't provided us with any proof that people care about elderly people. They haven't actually given us a reason or proof as to why that's true, why people care for elderly people. Because in our society, we think that people aren't caring enough about elderly people.

We don't see that care for people. We see a neglect for elderly people in our society. We see that not every place has a ramp or an elevator for an elderly person. So that's just proof that there's not a consistent care for these people. So we think that eliminates this rebuttal that there just is going to be this assumption that everyone cares for their elderly parents.

They say that workers for elderly homes won't work if they're sick. And therefore, our point about having sickness in elderly homes isn't true. Whereas elderly people who get sick are still going to live in that home, whether or not they're sick. We're not going to throw them out. Of course, they're still going to be sick in this home. And elderly people are more susceptible to getting illnesses as their immune system is worse. So because of this, there is more likely chance that there's going to be sickness. We know that in elderly homes, it's very common for people to pass away because they're older. So we think that this is just more likely to happen with a larger community of all older people in one area.

They say that there is good community support in elderly homes or just good support in general. So first of all, we're not talking about only elderly homes. A lot of people who are elderly are just living alone in their homes. Obviously, that doesn't provide them with support, especially if they don't have the ability to go out and source that support from maybe playing poker or something at a pub. Not all elderly people can just do that.

We also know that no one is really enforcing this. They've tried to make it clear that it is, but I haven't really seen-- like I've said, there's not a care for elderly people in our society. So no one's really caring too much about what's happening in elderly homes. For example, we know that people die in elderly homes very, very often because they are older. So when someone dies, it's not a big, oh my god, someone's been murdered. Someone's been killed. There's been some issue. It's, oh, but they were really old anyways. So we don't really investigate these kind of issues. We don't investigate the abuse in elderly homes because it's so common that it's not something that we are really like investigating that often.

They say that parents will work long hours or aren't available. So we think that, firstly, people have more incentive to visit their elderly people. If people are working long hours and they put their elderly person in a home or they're living alone, they have no incentive to even visit that person every single day or just to say hi to them. Whereas we believe that even saying hi to someone in a hallway is better than not seeing them at all. It's that little bit of benefit that gives elderly people a more social life and more of a community, and the feeling that they are cared for and loved in this society, even if a parent can't care for them 24/7.

So they also say that people in medical fields are trained. So a lot of people in this field, there's not really enough people in the medical field for elderly people in elderly homes because you don't get a lot of money. And it's not a very desirable job. So there's a lot less people trying to get this job. And therefore, there's a lower standard of worker for this job as opposed to a heart surgeon or something like that.

They also say that stories don't align with parental and children's views, so that's why they shouldn't have to be conversing. We think that this is actually a positive that I'm going to talk about in my points, but that children can influence more progressive views on the elderly.

So overall, I just want to sum my first speaker's points, which is that we have shown to you that elderly people want to live in their homes. They want that connection to home. They want their family, and they want familiarity. Elderly people are vulnerable. They are susceptible to mental or physical injuries.

Elderly people don't want to ask for help. They've lived a life of independence. And they're, frankly, just embarrassed to admit that maybe they are losing that independence. That's a very humbling thing to do and very upsetting for a lot of people. So it's not something that they want to be always having to ask for help from a worker or from their family. So we need to enforce that their family has to give them help that they may need.

Elderly people are unsafe in aged care facilities. We've talked about how in extreme cases there are elderly abuse or neglect. But even outside of that, there is a lack of resources. And it is bad for someone's mental health. They feel like they're not cared for. And they are around a system where people are dying, or people are injured, or people are struggling every day. They are seeing people struggle every day. That is obviously not good for anyone's health. And there's a major lack of familiarity.

So I'm going to start by just discussing the principal points in this debate that we feel we have won. So firstly, they've talked about how elderly people-- or no. We think that elderly people should be cared for as they want to live at home, even at the slight expense of a family's freedom of choice. So we generally prioritise elderly people as they have already served society. They have paid their dues. They've paid taxes. They've worked their whole life. So they've already given back to their community.

They are more vulnerable, as we've already shown. They are sometimes unable to care for themselves. And everyone deserves an equal quality of life. Elderly people just take a bit more to achieve this equal quality of life, which is why we need to give it to them. And that's why we prioritise the lives of elderly people over the minor disturbances this may cause the family, as we think it's more important to prioritise elderly people's lives in this debate.

Secondly, we think that people and family are obliged to care for elderly people. Firstly, elderly people have a higher priority, as I've just explained. Secondly, elderly people have cared for their kids, and therefore they have a responsibility to-- an obligation to give back to their parents. And lastly, there's a minor harm to the families as there is compared to the people. So that's why I believe that.

So I'm going to move on to my 2 points, which is about how this is going to actually be better for the children of elderly people and for the communities. So enforcing our model is not only going to improve the lives of elderly people, but it's going to improve those with elderly parents and entire communities. For those who live without elderly parents in the status quo, we can see a lack of family relationships inside and lack of education for children.

So the proof of this is that people spend a lot of time working, on their phone, and they're less inclined to spend time with their grandparents or their parents because there's no punishment to not doing this. Within our model, we see 3 unique benefits for children living with their elderly parents. Firstly, there's better family relationships. Just the simple fact that you're spending more quality time together means that there's going to foster a better relationship within your family.

Secondly, they can gain more insight both ways and achieve more sharing of perspectives that isn't really happening right now. And thirdly, grandchildren are gaining responsibility. So they're learning from their parents that they need to be responsible. And they're also learning this cycle of care that they need to care for their parents. And then their kids are going to learn that. And just starting a nice cycle where it's not something that we have to so harshly enforce, because people are just thinking, this is a status quo. This is normal to care for our parents.

And these will improve family relationships and the lives of both parties. This is important. As we can see, we are losing a connection to older generations through our busy lives and lack of visits to aged care facilities, whereas our model ensures that people get the benefits of spending time with their older parents. But we also believe that this model will improve greater communities. As we've explained, there is a divide between older and younger generations, as we already don't interact. And there's a lack of respect for each other's beliefs.

Under our model, we see 3 unique-- more benefits. Firstly, we are sharing stories. We are learning about history. And we are learning empathy for each other. It's different from just learning a history book at school, as you're actually experiencing someone who has lived through these events, maybe a veteran, or maybe just someone who has had a tough life, who has seen what it's like to not live in a privileged society that we live in today. You're able to get empathy from them and actually understand their perspective.

Secondly, sharing perspectives-- younger generations kind of influence more conservative views to be more progressive. And they can really understand each other's influence instead of having an older person who has no-- they're bridged off from society and they're only around elderly people in elderly aged homes. So they're not really getting that other perspective that's going to help them improve their views.

And lastly, they're playing a part in society. The younger generation is going to learn the importance of giving back. And therefore, we're going to have this happen more and more often. And it's, like I said before, going to become the norm. So this means that communities will be more connected and have a more respectful environment, which involves views that are more progressive and caring. So that is why I'm very proud to affirm. Thank you.

[applause]

EKUN AU: The elderly need more care because of the nature of their age and all the other things that are commonly associated with ageing. So now the question being raised is, what is the best way to provide this care? The opposition goes wrong today by mischaracterising with an uncharitable recognisation of aged care and the nature of it.

There are 3 things I will be doing in my debate today-- speech today, sorry. Firstly, some rebuttals against the opposition. Secondly, substantive as to why the status quo is ultimately better. And the 2 main things I'll be talking about there is the safety and accessibility, specifically, what it lacks in a home and what is present inside aged care homes. And then also the second point being the financial burden that is ultimately placed on the family themselves. And then, finally, we'll see where the debate stands after that.

So firstly, some rebuttals-- the opposition comes up to tell you that old people are old, and therefore if there's a murder or something happens in aged care, then they're less likely to investigate and things like that. Well, we believe that's simply untrue. Just because someone is old and they have supposedly less time to live does not take away from the importance of murder or any things like that.

In fact, the opposition also mentions that old people need a good quality of life regardless of their age. This completely contradicts what they said where old people get less value. They specifically have more value in aged care homes because of several benefits we'll outline soon.

The opposition then comes up and tells us that we are losing a connection to these old people. Well, aged cares are not a prison. They are clearly distinguished from prisons. You can still visit them. And ultimately, the sense of community inside aged care is something that's very difficult to replicate in a home environment, which I will also go down into more characterisation later.

The opposition then goes on to say that they can't make a good decision if we give them all these options in our status quo. Well, at least we've given them options. We can't obviously control what decisions they make, but wouldn't it make sense that people who know their own situations should be able to make a better choice? Why are we putting this blanket requirement for everyone to just look after everyone at home? We should at least give them an option to make a decision. And the opposition ultimately makes a huge generalisation where they've grouped everyone, saying that you have to look after these elderly people at home. At the very least, we give them options in our status quo.

The opposition goes on to talk about the safety and how there's lacking safety, such as there's sickness in elderly homes. Well, ultimately, we believe this is untrue because we've seen during the recent COVID examples more elderly people died at home due to contamination with their children potentially going out to work, having to go shopping. And it's ultimately less safety there, which I'll also expand in the safety and accessibility point.

Now, onto my substantive-- firstly, the safety and accessibility aspects of homes compared to aged care. So homes are ultimately not designed to accommodate for elderly people because they are not designed with access in mind. What does this look like? It looks not having ramps next to stairs. It looks like not having handrails or elevators in place of them. You don't have high visibility walls or anything like that. Doorways aren't generally designed to be wide enough to fit a walker through. And all of these aren't taken into consideration.

So why is this important? Well, we recognise in society that there are old people and we need to accommodate for them. We've seen a huge push to do this in public spaces, where new business corporations have implemented elevators next to stairs and all these other accessibility features. However, it is unlikely that these will be directly implemented in future homes. It is simply not feasible for future build designers to design homes with ramps and things in mind. Future homes are ultimately not going to shift to this.

And ultimately, so why do we care about this? Well, aged care homes, on the other hand, are specifically designed to accommodate for these older people. The opposition here brings up that the quality of life, the important mental safety aspect of this is also equally as important. Well, we believe this is ultimately wrong because aged care, you have a sense of community and these unique benefits of it where you can go to clubs, knitting, and all these things are provided for you. Ultimately, while you can replicate this at home, it just simply doesn't equal because you do not have the sense of community. You don't have a bunch of similar people in a similar situation grouped together in a home environment.

The opposition is counterfactual. Another important aspect that would come up is that the homes are ultimately better, but we just do not believe this is true because of the lack of accessibility, which leads to the lack of safety. So due to this, the status quo is ultimately much better because it gives an avenue for people to at least have a choice whether or not to send their elderly to aged care homes, or whether or not to care for them at home. We have characterised this into 3 broad groups, the people who would in the status quo and who will care for elderly no matter what. They care for their parents. And nothing has changed there. They can go ahead and do that.

We've also shown that people that do want the best for their elderly, but do not think that they are the best to provide it-- they might be busy, and they do not think it's best for them to provide the care, and therefore want to send them to aged care. And then you've got the unfortunate people who don't care. Well, you've just blanket banned on them to have to now care for their elderly parents.

On to my second point, which is the financial stress. Since you're now caring for elderly people in your own home, you have to provide them with food, water and all the basic necessities that ultimately cost money. And it's no different to raising a child. This adds a financial burden to families, which is ultimately felt more if you have a larger family.

What does this look like in the opposition's world? Well, if they have one child, maybe it doesn't add too much, but it still does add things which are negative. And it's still a burden. Obviously, families with more amount of children would feel the burden more.

The opposition does come up with some push saying that it still costs-- if we're not spending our money at home looking after them, we're going to aged care homes. We're paying aged care homes to look after them for them, and money is just diverted to another place. However, we believe that aged care has unique benefits, such as the sense of community that you simply cannot replicate with money in a home scenario.

So why do we care about this? Because the money is going elsewhere to homes. In the opposition's world, there's less demand for aged care because there's people with age-- these aged care companies do not have these people being sent here. However, the stakeholder where people do want to send their parents to aged care will ultimately find it more difficult to find aged care facilities for them. And this is just a major impact on the stakeholder of elderly parents or elderly people where their children do care about them and do not think they are the best to supply it, and now somehow have to make do with what they have.

So how is this important? Well, it obviously makes it a major struggle for them to go send their elderly to aged care because it's just simply less prevalent. So ultimately, due to this, we find the status quo is better in the economic aspect because we still give them an option to send them to aged care.

So we'll see where the debate stands now. What are you likely to believe after this? You're likely to believe that there is a lack of accessibility in homes. We are not designing homes with ramps in mind and things like that, with larger walkways and things like that. It is ultimately safer in an aged care place because it's designed with elderly people in mind.

And this is where the main push of the opposition comes into play, saying that aged care do lack facilities and lack the sanitation attention for these elderly people. Since they're looking after supposedly such a large amount of people, they seem to decrease the amount of care for them. But we believe this is simply untrue, because there is staffing, and aged care is ultimately designed for it.

And the key difference here is the medical aspect of it. At home, if something happens that's a medical incident, it's unlikely that the child of the grandparents would have enough medical information to administer first aid sufficiently, whereas in aged care, there's obviously more trained staff on hand, which is ultimately better. The opposition also pushes mental health, but we believe this is simply untrue because there are community things inside aged care. You can still visit, and this is simply not something that is ultimately negated here.

So what are you likely to believe in terms of financial stuff? Well, there is a financial burden placed on it. The question is where it's diverted. Is it put into the home to try and look after the parents, or is it put towards aged care? Well, we find that there are several unique benefits of aged care that, as previously characterised and mentioned by our first speaker, you cannot possibly replicate the sense of community at home.

Yes, you might be able to have a Zoom call because elderly people lack the mobility to go out and explore. Yes, Zoom calls exist, and things like that. But it ultimately is not the same, especially when it comes to transportation. You do not have a car that generally can accommodate for wheelchairs and things like that. Ultimately, this lack of mobility is not accommodated and accounted for.

So by the end of this debate, due to the unique benefits of this, at the end of the speech, we are proud to stand by the status quo. And as the negative team, we are proud to negate. Thank you.

[applause]

HIRUDI KARUNARATHNA: OK. So in this debate, I think we have 2 key questions or areas of concern. The first being, what is the impact on elderly people? So the opposition come, and we have this sort of clash in terms of characterisation. They characterise aged care as something that is good. And they say that we have things like checks and balances in place. But we think that this is quite an assertion and that aged care isn't actually that good for several reasons.

First, we think that it's overall less priority by the government. Because aged people are now not serving society as much, and therefore, we feel as though they're going to want to invest more in things like health care for the majority of the population, education for our younger generations, things like environmental action, and so on. And aged care is likely going to be lower on their list of priorities and therefore will receive less funding and less attention.

We also think that there are larger numbers because people are becoming ever more career focused. And therefore, they're more likely to send their parents to aged care facilities, which means that, overall, there are more people there. The funding sort of runs dry, and that it's spread out, and therefore aged care people don't receive as much as they should.

And we also think that-- the opposition stated that people won't send their parents to a one-star aged care facility. But if this is in such high demand, it means it's likely quite expensive because we need to provide for that large number of people. And therefore, if the only option for them, or it's a preferable option because they don't really want them to stay at home, is to pay a little bit less and have their parents in aged care facility out of the home, they're more likely to opt for that, which means overall, the care in aged care facilities is lower.

And I'm going to move on to why it would be better under our side of the house, where they'll be able to stay at home, because the opposition said that the care at the home isn't better, as it's only contingent on how much the carers actually care for the elderly. And we have a couple of responses to this.

The first is that because the elderly person is the only elderly person there, we feel like they'll just receive more attention overall because they're the highlight. They're not in a large crowd. We also think that the carers will likely have more incentive than, say, a staff at the aged care home, mainly because they have personal ties to the individual and they feel a responsibility towards them. But also something that the opposition stated for us is that they may receive judgement if they don't care for this person properly, and we think that actually works in our favour here.

We also think that they tend to know a bit more about this person's history, what they've been through. And therefore, they're able to care better for them because they understand why they may be experiencing certain symptoms and so on and so forth. And they do receive the medical attention under our side of the model as well.

The opposition also brought up this idea of accessibility. But we also think that, generally, elderly people tend to be a little bit less mobile, so this won't be as much of an issue moving around the house. Because, say, they-- and most houses are made in a way so you have a bedroom on the bottom floor. And there's a bathroom on the bottom floor. And that's where most of the facilities are, if it's a 2-story house. If it's an apartment, obviously, that's not really much of a problem.

And we think that, overall, if the house is really not suitable and this elderly person is really vulnerable, then under our model, it means that they won't be sent to that house. Because if it's not suitable, we say in that case they can be sent to an aged care facility if needed.

Emotionally, when we discuss the mental health of our elderly people, the opposition come and say that aged care homes are actually more enjoyable. But this is also, in many ways, an assertion. We think that overall they will be happier under our side of the house because they'll function better due to the familiarity of the environment and the people as well. They'll also feel like they're not being paid to be taken care of. It's not just a job. It's also some sort of emotional responsibility. Even if it was legal, it does mean that my child's caring for me, and they get that more emotional boost, you could say.

We also think that in aged care homes, they don't get visited as much. Sure, it's an option, but why else do we have charities where people go and read books to the elderly? They go and do activities. And they go talk to them. Obviously, because they don't get visited much by their actual family. And this is understandable, because their family sometimes is busy. And therefore, they don't receive that care. Whereas if they were in the home, true, maybe the family will be busy, but they'll at least say hi. And they'll at least get to see their daughter, or their son, or their grandkids more times than they would in the aged care home. And this is definitely going to have a better emotional benefit for them.

We also thought that even though there were activities, this is generally restricted. We're sort of generalising the fact that all old people like to knit. And that's quite a large generalisation. We can't really suggest that. So we can't presume that just because there's these activities, it means that all elderly people will enjoy that.

And so overall, under our side of the house, presuming the worst-case scenario, say elderly people don't like it at home. They're not really clicking well with their family. And there's this emotional tension because, oh my god, you're forced to come to my house. I don't want you here.

They receive less proper physical care because the house isn't really made to be that accessible. We think we still get a major benefit. And that is even though maybe we sacrifice the life-- not life, but the benefits of this particular minority, we think that still we get the resources we have from clearing out aged care homes. And therefore we get more money to supply people that don't have the suitability.

And therefore, they're able to go to those homes. And therefore, we benefit an overall majority because we think it's unlikely that people won't care for their elderly parents at all, because they do have those emotional ties. So that's the majority. We also think that they'll be able to care better, as I listed before. And overall, this minority of people is a worth sacrifice to benefit this majority.

So when we get to weighing, as I just said, just stated before, the majority is benefiting as compared to the minority that won't get exactly what they want. But we think that the harms are mainly minimal. We also think that the quality of care will be better, even though potentially the quantity of it will be better on the opposition side of the house. So we think that quality matters more because, overall, it's improving that quality of life, emotionally and also physically, when they feel cared for. We know that what goes on mentally has a large effect on what happens physically. And therefore, we're providing for both of those facets.

So now on to the next question. How does this affect those looking after the elderly? So there's this sort of principled clash when we ask ourselves, is it OK to limit the freedom of choice of these people? And the opposition say, no, it's not. And they say, it's not fair. They should be able to have this decision.

We have some weighing to do here. We think that we should care more about elderly people because, generally, they're more vulnerable, and they've made that service to society. And therefore, we should prioritise them over, say, the carers. And we also think that the overall benefits to these elderly people by implementing our model are larger than the minor harms that will come to these carers.

Because say it costs a little more-- and I'll get to that in a bit-- and say the house is a little bit more annoying, I guess you could say, because they need to care more for this person. But overall, this elderly person is getting their dues, what they've paid to society. And they're overall healthier and happier under our side of the house. And therefore, we think that matters more because they as a person matter more in this specific household.

We also think that people are more likely to disregard the elderly under the opposition side of the house. They're less likely to bring them home, even if they have the means to do so, because they'll be more career focused. As a result, our model provides people with the incentive to say, hey, we have to bring our parent home, and we're able to care for them. And therefore, we actually provide them that direction. We also think that the opposition's model is also contingent on the fact that-- that's OK.

Moving on to our practical argument or the practical area of this area of concern, the opposition mainly stated about the financial burden. And here's what we think. First off, it's definitely not financially suitable, like they're very low in socioeconomic status. We can send them to a more suitable area. That's under our model.

We also think that the cost is quite similar. Aged care homes are quite expensive, and therefore to pay for food and everything, the care and the medical attention is quite the same, if not more expensive, because aged care homes tend to be more expensive. And therefore, we feel like they pay relatively the same amount. Except on the opposition side of the house, in aged care homes, they receive less care because there's a lot more people. But under our side of the house, they pay the same for food, care, and they also get that emotional benefit, but they also get the fact that they're the only individual.

So overall, in this debate, we see that we overall get a better quality of care and we benefit a majority in terms of those who have a home to go to and those who don't. We're able to help solve this aged care crisis while the opposition exacerbates it, while giving people this choice that really should matter less than the people themselves because of how much they've contributed to society. And we overall give people the incentive to claim these benefits overall. And that's why I'm proud to affirm.

[applause]

JACINTA KONG: I'll start my speech in 3, 2, 1. So I think the affirmative team went wrong today by, I think, forgetting the fact that a lot of elderly people are quite happy with the state that they're in. I don't think a lot of elderly people are really in a terrible situation. I think they're quite happy to live alone, like in their own homes, where they're able and familiar with their environment, where they're able to have a community that they've already established. I think most old people or elderly people have a good connection with their family. And they're able to balance the fact that these families are able to have an independent life within their home while also being connected to their parents that are living in a separate home.

So I think what the affirmative team really needed to look at today were the specific families that we were talking about were the families of the-- sorry-- the children of these elderly parents were less willing to look after these parents. They probably cared less about their parents, and they were more neglectful. I think these were the type of people that were most impacted and we were talking about the most in this debate. And therefore, I think this is why we can prove why a lot of the harms that we present to you still exist, while the affirmative has to defend these harms.

I think the first thing I want to point out in my speech is that the first affirmative comes up to us and concedes that children put their parents in aged care homes because they know that they practically cannot look after their parents or they just do not want to. I think that concession from the first affirmative at the very beginning of this debate already sets up to prove that these children are able to have-- these children have the capacity to make that choice, that they know that they are unable to care for these parents, and that they are better off in aged care facilities where, one, it is more safe and, 2, they are able to get the attention and care that they need versus in a home where either people do not care about these elderly people at all, which we think is just more sad in comparison. Or number 2, they just have no capacity to care for these elderly people.

So 2 things in my speech today-- firstly, a bit of rebuttal, and secondly, I'll be going through a bit of weighing about why we should really care about these very vulnerable elderly people where their children don't care about them. So 2 themes in rebuttal today. Firstly, does this improve the lives of the elderly? And secondly, what is the impact on the carers and family?

So I think the affirmative comes up with this very strong push saying that aged care is extremely detrimental. And they give us 3 reasons why this is true. They say, one, there is a lack of resources and sanitations, to which I have 2 responses to this. Firstly, we thought that the lack of resources was further exacerbated or worse in homes because, like my second speaker said, there weren't safety precautions. These homes weren't specifically built to house these elderly people.

And secondly, we thought that sanitation was uniquely worse because these children looking after their parents were likely to be very busy. We didn't think that they were always there. It wasn't their job to clean the place and make sure everything was sanitary. And also, there were a lot of kids coming in and out of the house that we thought could spread things to the elderly people. So we didn't see how the affirmative could prove that aged care homes, which were made for keeping these elderly patients healthy and happy, were less resourceful or sanitary compared to homes.

The second thing they told us was that there was a lack of staff and that they don't really get the attention that they deserve. However, we thought there were 2 things wrong with this. Firstly, this isn't really solved in their world where aged care is uniquely for dependent-- like for people that are dependent or there are medical reasons. They give us reasons why staff would be unlikely to work in aged care homes. However, we think this is worse in their world where they're just putting all the people that they say are mentally-- like they don't have mental cognitive capacity, or they have very difficult medical conditions. If they were the only people in aged care homes, we don't see how they improved the problem that they presented, where there was no incentive for staff to work at these places.

I think the second thing is that there was an even worse lack of attention at home, because these parents weren't able to know how to deal with medical emergencies or situations. And also, these parents likely were looking after their kids. They likely had to go to work. So they would be far from home a lot of the time. So we think that having the attention or having a medical professional there able to look after the issue immediately was better attention than what they were proposing on their world.

They also came up and pushed that there would be a lack of community or isolation. However, I think we largely think that's untrue because, firstly, we thought there was a lot of communities from people living in their own home, where they were able to make connections with their neighbours. We didn't understand how pulling them out of that situation into another home they were unfamiliar with would make the community any better. And 2, even if they were living in aged care homes, we thought that there were a lot of things that aged care villages do to help people make connections and develop a community or have fun.

So under this case, we told you that aged care wasn't that bad. And I think we've kind of dealt with that clash a lot in today's debate. Secondly, we told you that there was inadequate capacity to care for the elderly. I think the affirmative team has a few responses to this. Firstly, they tell us that they have ties or they care for this person, and therefore they are likely to care for this elderly person. I think that's very true. And I think that's kind of something that exists in both worlds, where we have people that care for their parents.

However, I think on our side, because we have the choice where these elderly-- children are able to care for their parents in their own homes. We believe that these children are able to make that decision to know that if they care for them and they have the capacity to look after them, that they'll be cared for properly. So this wasn't something that-- these weren't the type of parent-children relationships we were really talking about in this debate today.

And secondly, I think that this kind of helps us on our side where they have ties and care for this person, because we think that-- at the point where you believe that these children are likely to make a good decision, where they were able to weigh up the cost and time of them looking after their children versus whether they were able to provide a good quality of care for their parents, and they still had ties and connections and cared for their parents. We thought that they were able to make a good decision, let their parents live away from them, but also still maintain ties between their grandparents and children.

I think the world that the affirmative team paints for us is highly unrealistic, because I think we see a lot of the times parents living outside of the homes that their children live in, but they often come over over the weekend. They drop their kids off at their grandparents' house to have fun. We think these parents come over for celebration. So I don't think the extent to which the affirmative's people living alone in their own homes and being neglected was as strong and at the point where it was like that bad that they were being neglected. We thought that these families cared so little that putting them in their own home would alternatively be worse.

So I think at the end of this very big clash, we've seen how we don't really improve the lives of the elderly people by forcing them to move into the homes of the children that don't really care for these elderly people. And we thought that it was better that we left it up to the children and the parents to be able to make that decision of what would be best for their situation.

So moving on to the second clash, what is the impact on carers and family? So I think the first thing that they come up and tell us is that there's an obligation and a moral duty of care for these kids to give back to their parents. However, I have 2 responses to this.

Firstly, we thought that on our world, we still maintain this ability to act on the moral duty while we still give them freedom of choice. And we thought that since these children are looking at their-- since these children are looking-- like having to think about what to do with their parents, we told you that, A, they are likely to want the best for their elderly. So they are likely to make a good decision while maintaining their moral duty of care. And 2, they're able to make the best decision because we think that they have the capacity, because we think that they know best about their capacity. We didn't think that the government was the best actor to determine whether you were dependent or independent or whether you were able or had the capacity to look after your parent or not.

I think the second response to this-- we thought that the harms of the negligence-- sorry-- or lack of care was worse than an enforced duty of care, where you are forcing people to take up this duty of care that they already had and we already proved to you that they were able to act on in a good manner. So at the point where we maintain the duty of care and the harms were so bad, we thought that on the affirmative, it far outweighs their forced duty of care.

I think the second thing they tell us is that-- sorry. Moving on, we came up and told you that they have a freedom of choice. And we thought that people were able to make a good decision, and that there was some financial stress to this. I think the main pushback we hear from the affirmative team regarding financial stress is that it is quite expensive to send people to aged care homes already.

I think the first response to this is that, yes, while we agree that it could be quite expensive, we think that there's a big difference between financially supporting your parents while they live in your home versus just paying aged care for them to be looked after. We think there's a lot of emotional stress that comes with it as well. And it's very difficult to balance having their own lives versus looking after the elderly.

So I think at the end of this debate, what do we see? I think we see a lot of reasons why the main people that we should be looking at and talking about in this debate, which are children that don't care about their parents, should not be trusted with having their parents in their homes. One, for practical reasons, like it's unsafe, and, 2, for the reasons that they are likely to care less about their parents and that these elderly people would probably have a better time either staying within their community, which we should leave them in so that they can have a good life, or, 2, being in an aged care home where we think we can adequately provide them with the medical attention they need.

So I think at the end of this debate, we've seen how we, on our side, leaving it as a status quo, we are able to give people the duty of care, a freedom of choice, and we are able to benefit the elderly people. And I think we are able to prove to you quite adequately why we trust people with this ability to make a decision. And therefore I am proud to negate.

[applause]

ISABELLA FREELAND: Great. OK. Thank you so much, everyone, for coming out to the final, and also a massive congratulations to both of these teams. Just another round of applause, because I think they did such a great job.

[applause]

Everyone, continue with debating. You're all excellent. These teams are absolutely excellent. Debating can take you so far in school and in uni. So definitely continue with the activity. So I'm going to start with a few pieces of feedback. And then I'm going to tell you how the panel saw the debate, noting that the debate ended up becoming a 2-1 split in that it was an extremely close round, as I'm sure all of you could tell because you were here watching it.

So the first piece of feedback is actually in relation to manner, which is obviously not something that we can judge the debate on. By that I mean how you speak and how you present. But it is an important thing in making yourself sound even better.

So a really good way to work on your manner is just doing really simple things like practicing debating in front of people rather than online. It's watching less debates on YouTube, if that's something that any of you do, so that you don't mimic other people's manner and instead develop your own personal style. That's something that's really important with debating. It makes you sound more persuasive and just makes the activity more fun than sounding like a robot. Not that you guys sounded like robots, but you know what I mean.

The second piece of feedback is to make sure to impact other stakeholders. So this debate ended up becoming quite narrow in that both teams kind of put their eggs in the same basket, which is fine. But the debate becomes more broad and interesting when we think about other stakeholders and other arguments and flesh those out to the same extent as our main argument, particularly in a debate that clearly impacts 2 stakeholders quite profoundly, so elderly people and also their families, and the children of those families. Equally, we can talk about those stakeholders.

The last thing is to make sure to engage with the other team's reasons. So I think in this debate, both teams gave good sets of reasons as to why their version of the world was true, but weren't very good at explaining why the other team's version wasn't true. So it's like we had these 2 competing claims that kind of just bumped against each other. It's better if we also explain why their version is untrue. So do likelihood analysis for your side, and then not likelihood analysis for the other side, if that kind of makes sense.

So the panel for the debate coming down to 2 main questions. The first was the impact on the elderly. And this is where the bulk of the debate occurred. And the second was the impact on families and the children of those families. So firstly, the impact on the elderly, I think affirmative has 3 main claims. So the kind of bulk of the claims are a set of reasons as to why aged care facilities have problems.

The first thing they explain is that elderly people are mentally vulnerable, which means that they can easily get confused about where they are. And the problem with putting them in a facility is that it's an environment that they're not familiar with, which means they can easily become confused. And it's hard to find a new support system in places like this, because they feel quite isolated.

Negative has, I think, 2 good responses to this. The first is that communities are actually fostered in aged care facilities. So like you do things like play bingo, or do sport or whatever it may be with other people in that facility with you. So you develop your own community. And second of all, they explained that there are a set of checks and balances that mean that confusion gets mitigated and these people get used to living in these areas.

The second thing that affirmative says is that your freedom of choice is restricted in elderly care. For example, the places where you go, the food that you eat and you don't have any independence. The final reason, and where the bulk of this clash occurs, is about resources. Affirmative says the problem with aged care facilities is that they're really underfunded. And what that means is that there's things like a lack of sanitation, which is bad for your immune system, and that those resources are spread over a large volume of residents. So the amount of resources that each person gets is quite small when it's kind of thought about in that way.

Negative, I think, has a few responses. The first thing they explain is that people can avoid sending their elderly parents to the absolute worst form of aged care. So the really bad ones we can try and avoid. The second thing they explain is that there are a set of accountability mechanisms to look after these people. So for example, if you get elderly abuse, you can report it. Or you as a parent who has their parent there can check in on them and see what's happening and make sure that the system is OK.

And finally, they explained that the problem is that homes are also underfunded and don't have medical facilities, for example. So we'd rather they be in an aged care facility where they have access to things like lots of first aid and trained medical professionals than at home where they don't have access to that.

Affirmative has a few responses to this. The first thing they explain is that people that work and that visit aged care facilities don't care enough. So for example, if you're working full time, maybe you don't have the incentive to go out and visit your parents. Integrating a piece of feedback, I think both teams could have been more charitable about the actors, because I think that parents probably do have an incentive to visit their parents in aged care facilities, in the same way that people that work in aged care facilities often have an incentive to care well. The problem is not with the people. It's more with the money. That's just integrating a piece of feedback. It does not impact the result.

The last thing the affirmative says, I think probably the most important response here is that not everyone can afford a good aged care facility. So the issue is not that they don't want to send their parents to one. It's that they can't. And they're really high in demand, which means they often have to settle for a slightly lower-quality aged care facility. And that's when you actually start to get the bulk of the problems, like bad sanitation, elderly abuse and bad care.

The final set of responses from negative are, first of all, that having that level of care that exists in aged care facilities is often not feasible at home. So for example, you don't have things like ramp and emergency buttons. And those lack of resources actually make parents much more likely to get sick. They also explain that there are competing priorities in the home. So you have to do work. You have to look after your kids. And often, you're just not trained, so you don't actually know how to deal with the worst-case medical emergencies.

What affirmative is able to do at the end of their case at third speaker is provide a few important pieces of mitigation that mitigate against the worst harms of the negative. So the first thing they explain is that if your house is truly unsuitable, if it's a house with constant stairs that's really kind of rickety, you probably don't send your parent there, and those people can get sent to medical facilities.

Second of all, that if there are medical emergencies, we can do things like call in doctors and call in paramedics. And probably people know relatively how to deal with lower-level medical emergencies. And finally, they explained that probably you get more attention from your parents when you're living at home-- sorry-- your children when you're living at home, because you have things like incidental bump-in. So you check in with your grandparents and see how they're going. You can monitor their medical kind of progress and see how they're going. So obviously, there are some cases where it's really bad, but I think affirmative proves that in most cases, it's kind of OK.

So at the end of that clash, it's extremely close. And this is the clash where the panel was split. What the majority of the panel ended up believing was that the absolute worst aged care facilities are so bad that it is probably important to have people at home, rather than in those facilities, because we mitigate against the worst form of elderly abuse. The second thing we believed is that homes probably were equipped enough, doing things like putting parents on the ground at home-- the ground level, for example, and checking in on them regularly means that they are still able to get sufficient medical care, and that the resources on net are better for them in the home than they are in a really bad elderly facility. And so that clash very marginally falls to side affirmative.

The second question then becomes the impact on families and children. Affirmative says 2 things. The first is that-- this is actually kind of one thing-- which is that family relationships at the moment are not very good because you don't spend quality time with your grandparents. You don't share stories with them. And this is good because it provides empathy and allows you to share their perspectives. And that's really useful.

Negative's response here is that, well, the problem is that elderly people and younger people often have a misalignment in their views. And so that means that that can actually cause tension in the home more than it can actually create community. And the second thing they explain is that that's not a good enough benefit compared to the freedom of choice that those kids are losing by having to take in their elderly grandparents when they don't want to. And that's the bulk of negative's substantive. So they say that the problem is forcing them to move in and forcing parents to take them in is a big problem, because that's when they actually become resentful. And that is bad.

Affirmative says we should care more about the elderly than the young because they're vulnerable and they've kind of made service to society over the years. So for example, they can be a veteran. Integrating a piece of feedback-- I don't think that an elderly person has to be a veteran in order to deserve that kind of care. Obviously, they can contribute to society in more ways than that, I guess I would say.

The next thing negative says is that the problem is that a lot of people don't have the ability to take these people in because it's really expensive. And it's not just that it's expensive, but it's actually emotionally expensive. So it causes a lot of emotional stress. And so, simply, you don't have the capacity to be able to do that. And they explain that if you aren't able to look after your grandparents well, or your parents well, you are deemed a bad person.

I think affirmative is able to neatly flip this, albeit very late in the debate, by explaining that this is actually good, because if you don't care for them properly, you get judged. And that judgement actually gives you an incentive to become a better carer for your parents. And that is something that's good.

And the second thing they're able to explain, which I think is probably true, is that the cost is probably similar, because the extra cost you would have to have, having them in your home, doing things like giving them food and water and stuff like that is similar, if not less, than the cost of putting them in a facility, because those kind of facilities are kind of notoriously expensive.

So at the end of that clash, what the panel was led to believe is probably that even though this infringes on people's freedom of choice, it is on net worthwhile because you are able to build that sense of rapport with your grandparents and because it's probably marginally cheaper. So as you can probably tell, that clash also falls to affirmative. So congratulations to affirmative.

[applause]

LANCE SPEAKMAN: Thank you for that. Please now welcome a representative from the negative to congratulate the winners.

KAREENA DHIMAN: We'd like to thank the team of South Western Sydney. It was a great debate. It was very fun, very high quality, and we enjoyed this opportunity and wish you all the best. Thank you.

[applause]

LANCE SPEAKMAN: Please welcome a member of the winning team to respond.

[applause]

MISCHA LE MAISTRE: I would just like to thank you for helping us grow so much as a team over the 2 debates that we've had against each other. We think you guys are really, really amazing at debating. And obviously, it was a very close one. So definitely keep pursuing it, and you'll be great in every future debate.

[applause]