Video transcript
NSW Premier's Debating Challenge 2024 - Years 11 and 12 State Final

[intro music]

JUSTINE CLARKE: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Great Hall at the University of Sydney. I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people, who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet today. I would also like to pay respect to Elders past and present, as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. I extend my respects to any Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people present today. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander learner in NSW achieves their potential through education.

My name is Justine Clarke, and I am the speaking competitions officer for the NSW Department of Education. Thank you for being here today to witness the 2024 final of the Premier's Debating Challenge for Years 11 and 12 for the Hume Barbour trophy.

The Hume Barbour debating competition is the oldest competition of its kind in NSW. It began in 1930 due to the generous donation of a trophy by Miss Hume Barbour, a descendant of Hume, the explorer after whom the Hume highway is named. The trophy, depicting the ancient Greek orator Demosthenes, was the work of the noted sculptor Raynor Hoff, who was also responsible for the Archibald fountain in Hyde Park.

I'd like to acknowledge our venue partner, the University of Sydney, and our prize partner, ACCO Brands Australia, for their ongoing support, and I'd like to welcome University of Sydney representative Frier Bentley, who we'll hear from later. Frier is the executive director, External Engagement, at the Uni. Thank you for allowing us to hold our state final in this beautiful venue.

I wish both Kirrawee and Newtown the very best today, and I look forward to what I'm sure will be an excellent debate. Our chairperson today is Andrew Pye and timekeeper is Ric Hou, both from Sydney Boys High School. Both Andrew and Ric are debaters themselves, and Andrew is a member of our Combined High Schools representative squad for 2024. I'll now hand over to Andrew to take over proceedings. I hope you all enjoy the debate.

ANDREW PYE: Thank you, Justine. I welcome you to the 2024 state final of the Premier's Debating Challenge for Years 11 and 12 for the Hume Barbour trophy. This debate is between Newtown High School of the Performing Arts and Kirrawee High School. The affirmative team from Kirrawee High School is first speaker Mika Faass, second speaker Audrey Lenzo, third speaker Taylor Harding and fourth speaker Norah Davis.

The negative team from Newtown High School for the Performing Arts is first speaker Scarlett Saunders, second speaker Karys Westak, third speaker Lola Merewether and fourth speaker Josephine Bradfield. The adjudicators are Maurice Lam, Jeremiah Edagbami and Ellie Stephenson.

Each speaker may speak for 8 minutes. There will be a warning bell at 6 minutes, with 2 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. The topic for this debate is 'That the Olympic Games should always remain politically neutral'. The first affirmative speaker, Mika Faass, will begin the debate.

[applause]

MIKA FAASS: Good morning, everyone. Currently, there are many flaws within the Olympic Games, bringing politics into an event that should inherently highlight the sports and the athletes themselves. We define the Olympic Games as the Olympic Committee, participating nations-- of the participating nations and the official committee outreaching into their funding, marketing, team policies, and promotion, and politically neutral, as the previously united stated parties-- as not being permitted to promote, engage in, or advertise political messaging, especially in the Olympic years, as this should be left up to the actual government of the countries.

For example, the Australian Olympic Committee and team should not be engaging in political discussions, as this should be left up to the qualified and elected Australian government.

As the first speaker, I will be discussing how politics within this space can result in violence and how Olympians are individuals. Our second speaker will point out how this takes away from the sheer point of the Games, which is to highlight the sport and unity. And our third speaker will sum up our case.

Now on to my first point. So having an Olympic Games that is inherently political can result in violence. When the political messaging of an action outreaches to their Olympic Committee and representatives, there are more athletes promoting sentiments against other nations because of the political nature of the Games.

So how can we let these athletes compete against each other in a way that promotes sportsmanship when they have just seen the Olympic Committee that backs these same people speak out against them?

So let's take the example of Britain's current political climate during this time. So at the moment, there are protests around Britain that are inherently Islamophobic, spreading around the country.

And so if we allow the Olympic Committee to say something in support of this movement, then this can be a very harmful way-- this can be very harmful if the Great Britain team end up competing against individuals who do identify as Muslim in the Games because it can spread this message of 2 different political parties being against each other, instead of being up to the individuals that are competing.

So we can already see this can turn into a violent situation. And so allowing this into the Olympic sphere, where millions of people travel to watch these games from all walks of life-- we cannot allow for this violent situation to occur, especially between athletes. So even if they did pose a statement that was viewed as 'politically correct', there would still be such a vast amount of people that would disagree with this statement, which-- with the Olympic Committee that could also result in a violent situation, as seen in the initial violence of Great Britain at the moment.

So as we see that there are so many far-right and far-left people in this political space, we can't let this inherent violence come up to the surface, especially in a game that is centred around sportsmanship and unity, especially with the rising tensions in politics.

We also need to remember that this is a family event that millions of people go to each year. So children are impressionable. And any political propaganda does not need to be in this space that has so many families and should be surrounded by unity.

So if we're fighting for this idea of political freedom, how can we influence these young minds at such a large scope? Also, if it were to turn violent at these games, due to the political nature of such far-- politically people, the risk of violence doesn't outweigh the pros that the negative team can bring up. And the safety of all these people should be kept as the priority in this situation.

So moving on to my team's second argument is that the Olympians who compete in the Olympic Games are representatives of their country, but they also need to be recognised as individuals and should be seen as such. So Olympians are independent, and they are their own person. They may agree with the politics of their nation that they're representing, but they also may not. And it shouldn't matter or affect the Games.

So the Olympians are there to compete and showcase their abilities and nothing more. If we allow the Olympics to get political, there are 2 harmful possible outcomes. So, one, the Olympic Committee of the nation-- of the Olympian is advocating or supporting for something that the Olympian does not agree with.

So we see this in the example in Australian Olympics with Gina Rinehart funding almost the entire Australian Olympic swimming team. And this forces athletes to comply and agree with Rinehart's mining company ideals. She is the richest woman in Australia, so therefore, she would be impacting the sponsorship of the Olympic Games. But it also forces the Olympians themselves to assimilate with this idea.

And so a harmful-- what ended up happening was that a handful of Indigenous athletes were morally obliged to then not compete or receive this funding because of what Rinehart's companies were doing to their sacred lands, because of their own individual ideas. And therefore, the athletes can easily be misrepresented by their nation's Olympic Committee's actions. And it is not fair on the athletes that they can be misrepresented in such a way.

Also, in the French Olympic team, they did not allow their athletes to wear hijabs because of their own French rules, despite some desiring to for their own religious purposes. So if we remove politics from the Games, it increases inclusivity because it can be seen as normal as that people, for example, do wear hijabs. People who are of different political and moral ideals can unite in this sort of space. And it means that more people can be welcomed into these games without risk of feeling like they aren't allowed due to their own religious ideals.

So the second outcome that can occur is that the Olympian can misrepresent a nation. So as previously stated, Olympians cannot be expected to agree with all their nation's politics. So if we allow Olympians to speak politically, they, therefore, can have the autonomy to say something harmful and misrepresentative of their nation and what their nation believes.

So, for example, an Olympian may win gold and use that platform to say something discriminatory that their country doesn't agree with. But because it's on such a world stage, this automatically begs the question of if their country agrees with what they're saying because their country is promoting this. So therefore, the Olympic Games should remain politically neutral.

SCARLETT SAUNDERS: Before I begin my team's case, I would like to point out the inherent and obvious flaws in the opposition's arguments. The affirmative team used an example of Israel and England and how this is a bad example of-- and how if the Olympic Committee speaks up against such terrorist attacks, that they were using it as an example or violence-- then they are inherently picking a side.

However, the nature of politics is that if the Olympic Committee were to hypothetically not speak up and make a statement about such a violent attack, they are then condemning the attack to occur and, in turn, choosing a political side.

In such events that the affirmative team was trying to characterise and use as examples for their arguments-- in turn, is impossible because if you pick a side, you are being political. But if you refuse to speak up and you stay silent, you are also being political because you then, undoubtedly, agree with what is going on by not speaking up about something that is violent, is dangerous for society.

The opposition also wrongly mischaracterised how there's a lot of violence existing in the Olympic Games. However, right now, all of this expression that is politically occurring in the current-- previous Olympic Games and what will continue to exist in the Olympic Games is showing pride, showing personal political beliefs that the greater audience have an understanding that not always the individual athlete aligns with the nation, but it is a form of individual expression, which is why we should not make the Olympic Games a politically neutral environment.

The opposition also used the term 'political propaganda'. However, we would like to rebut this by saying that freedom of speech is not propaganda. It is simply expressing an opinion and that by saying that all forms of politics that are being expressed during these Olympic Games is propaganda is wrongly mischaracterised.

The opposition also stated that there was a potential harm for children that go to the Olympic Games. However, as I have already stated, a lot of the political messages and things and voices for individuality that are occurring in the Olympic Games is not violent, is not aggressive, is not discriminatory, and therefore, is not posing a risk for children.

And in return, by having to be politically neutral Olympic Games, then we are silencing these athletes, as I will continue in my substantive. But it is also informing these children that we can't speak up about individual political beliefs, whether or not they align with what other individuals are thinking.

The opposition also used an example of Gina Rinehart. However, this is also a mischaracterisation of Olympic athletes, as they are not entirely susceptible to have to willingly agree to every individual's belief system. And every individual in the Olympic Games, especially for a team such as Australia that has hundreds of athletes going to both the Summer and the Winter Olympics every single year-- they all have their own individual expression, and they are not susceptible to certain individuals for the sake of funding such organisations.

Furthermore, I would also like to point out in the opposition's argument about violence and potential attacks that could occur in a politically-- non-neutral political Olympic Games-- however, once again, this is a wrongful mischaracterisation, but also, media coverage, especially in such an international scale, is delayed.

So on the very, very unlikely chance that something would happen like that, there is automatically a delay that goes from what is occurring in person to what is being fed to every single country's televisions and what that media is, which entirely mitigates the opposition's arguments, as this is not a threat, as it is almost impossible due to the security measures for any attacks to occur. But it is also incredibly unlikely for this to have such a detrimental effect that the opposition is attempting to characterise.

Now I will continue with my team's case. The Olympic Games, under the status quo, is inherently political, and the Olympic Games as an international event is not only a form of celebration for the performance of individuals and teams, but additionally, an international outlet to push for change on both national and international scales.

Those that wouldn't normally engage in political topics, like women in sport, like gay rights, like international wars, are subtly exposed to them through the Olympics. This creates a more aware, open, and engaged international community, no matter the country they live in.

The opposition's proposed change they are attempting to convince you is the best move is fundamentally and morally wrong. The proposed world the affirmative team provides you is a world where we have disabled the notion of free speech and expression and made further societal progression inherently impossible in future Olympic Games.

These ethically incorrect and logistically impossible arguments the affirmative team is trying to present to you is inherently wrong, as we will convince you as a negative team, as to why the Olympic Games should not always remain politically neutral. As the first speaker, I will unpack the clear-cut negative impacts of a politically neutral Olympic Games. I will convince you as to how a politically neutral Olympic Games or dehumanises athletes due to this media censorship. And I will additionally convince you as to how this change will stop public debate about important change and how this change will prevent further societal progression.

[bell ringing]

My second speaker will effectively ask if there can tangibly be a neutral Olympic Games and then prove as to why this is impossible under the affirmative team's arguments and model. And then my third speaker will rebut and summarise my team's case.

Now on to my first argument on the effect this will have on athletes. Under the status quo, the Olympic Games is an outlet for expression. For example, in the 2024 Olympic Games, after a Palestinian swimmer finished their race, they touched their arm to show support for the Palestinians and the war that is unfolding in the Middle East.

This is something that is not dangerous or not violent or anything. It is a means to have individual expression that is showing support and showing pride in their country, which-- however, it is something that would be deemed political that would be prevented should the Olympic Games become a politically neutral event.

For example, Cathy Freeman in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, after winning the gold medal in the 400-metre sprint, held the Aboriginal flag, which was not, at that time, identified as a flag. It was not recognised as a flag. And that was a really grand political statement.

However, that sparked further national and international change and progression, which not only has the flag represented as a legitimate flag, but also, we have now progressed so far in society because of these discussions that the Olympic Games allows to happen that we had a potential-- we had a referendum-- we had an option to vote in the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

And even though this didn't go through, this is a clear recognition of societal change and political change that has unfolded only over the course of 6 Olympic Games.

There are various forms of individual expression that exist in the Olympic Games that is inherently political-- race, sexuality. The vast majority of our favourite Matildas soccer team are members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Yet they may, in future events, have to participate in Olympic Games in countries where it is not legal to be gay. it is not legal to be one of these people. And that, in itself, is political. And whatever happens under that is political. And we need to be allowing these individuals to have the right of expression.

Furthermore, transgender is a massive debate right now, as to whether transgender athletes should be included in further both Summer and Winter Olympic Games. However, this is the issue that we are talking about because if the Olympic games decides not to include transgender athletes because they can't-- they have to be politically neutral, that is taking a political side. If they are choosing to then not-- if they are not including the Paralympians, they are taking a political side.

[bell dinging]

If they are, then, either way, they are taking a political side. And that is why I'm proud to negate.

[applause]

AUDREY LENZO: Good morning, everyone. The topic for this debate is 'That the Olympic Games should always remain politically neutral'. And as the affirmative team, we agree with this statement. Before moving on to my team's case, I'd first like to point out some flaws in the opposition's first speaker's case.

So the opposition brought up this idea that if you're agreeing with-- if you don't say anything something, then you're inherently agreeing with something. And we just think this is blatantly wrong because just because a committee doesn't-- just because a committee doesn't say anything about political messaging, it doesn't mean that they immediately agree. They're simply choosing to stray from conflict and tension.

And furthermore, people know that the Olympic Games is not political under our side, and therefore, people aren't going to be mad if the committee doesn't speak up, and it's not going to create the conflict that the opposition believes it will. Furthermore, they also brought up-- they also said that Olympians don't have to agree with funders' political messaging and didn't agree with our Gina Rinehart example and how Aboriginal people did not compete as a result of her funding and the political messages she was promoting.

We'd like to point out that it's unfair to undermine someone's morals and their beliefs and kind of expect them to go along with it when it's literally blatantly disagreeing with everything they believe with. And the Aboriginal people were unable to compete as a result of a political figure not funding the Olympic Games. And it's unfair to say that they can't compete. So therefore, we shouldn't have political funding.

And the affirmative team talks a lot about morals and then doesn't place value on individual Olympian beliefs. And this is why we agree it is important to speak about political funding, and we don't agree with it.

Furthermore, they said that the only politics In the Olympics now is pride in people's nations. Tell that to the French hijab wearers who were not allowed to compete. It's blatantly untrue that there are no harmful political messages in the Olympics, which I'll further discuss in my speech about French controversies in the current Olympics, 2024.

They also spoke a lot about this idea of freedom of speech. We'd like to point out the Olympics is about sport. It's not about politics. Ignoring the purpose of the Olympic-- it's completely ignoring the purpose of the Olympic Games, which is about sport and unity. Yes, people should have free speech, but not in a space where it isn't concerned and can be harmful. The Olympic Games is not the only space where people can have freedom of speech. So it's just a bit odd to claim that it's necessary in this space when it's not even about promoting political ideas.

They also said that the promotion of political ideas can incite positive change. Yes, it can, but it can also incite negative change, violence, and hatred. And the risk of this occurring is more important than someone promoting a little bit of inclusivity, as I'll mention again, in a space that isn't meant for promoting political messages. It's about sport and unity. And there are other spaces and public places to do so, other than the Olympic games.

Moving on to a few of my arguments as the affirmative team. So I'll be discussing neutrality in politics and how it promotes the Olympic values of sport and unity, essentially what the Games is all about. Let's not make it about anything else.

I'll also be discussing how this benefits the individual. And when we endorse political notions in the Olympic Games and we endorse funding from figures who clearly promote their own political views, as a result, we see nations promoting these same ideals as a kind of 'payback mechanism', repaying these people, turning the Olympic Games into a branding scheme, which is not what it is about, and it takes away from the sport and unity of the games.

So moving on to my first point-- just as a little side note, we'd like to point out the Olympic Games already asks athletes to be politically neutral. So there is already some kind of neutrality going on at the moment. But on this point of sport and unity, as the values of-- the core values of the Olympic Games, it is crucial that they remain politically neutral to not only promote these core values but avoid tensions between nations and nations being misrepresented as a result of political funding and Olympian political views.

As an example, we see the detrimental outcomes of political involvement in the games. For example, in the late 1990s, the Olympic Games were held in Moscow, and the US led a boycott against the Soviet Union, which resulted in approximately 50% of countries refusing to attend these games. And this led to increased Cold War tensions, extremely political, high-risk environments, with a lot of political opposition swirling around. We didn't see any positives as a result of political involvement in the games, and this demonstrates that we're only going to see negative consequences when the Olympic Games get political and there's politics in spaces where there shouldn't be.

Furthermore, the promotion of political ideas in the Olympic Games takes away from the Olympians, which the games are all about, and disrupting the sport and unity. Obviously, I mentioned the core values of these games, so we saw this occur this year in 2024 whereby French controversies removed public and media focus from the Olympians.

For example, the French opening ceremony was not only controversial because it promoted certain religious ideals, but because of its political underlying messages, the media swarmed the subject, focusing on the political aspects of the ceremony rather than the Olympians themselves, who the games are all about, and clearly taking away from the experience of the Olympians, but also creating-- also experiencing a loss, of the key purpose of the games as a crucial cultural aspect in our world, and as a showcase of elite sport and unity amongst nations.

How can the opposition justify the integration of harmful, conflicting political messaging into the Olympic sphere when there are no positive outcomes of it, as justified by my example of the Moscow Olympics? And it completely eradicates what the Olympic Games are all about, where the opposition is just, I believe, unable to justify this. And looking at this other aspect of what occurs when we don't have political neutrality is the branding and promotion in the games that results from political funding.

[bell ringing]

So just to continue on with this Gina Rinehart example, she funded the Australian Olympic team this year in 2024. And she obviously funds the team as a mining mogul, and therefore, in return, Australia is very likely to promote mining and fossil fuels as a form of repayment. And this turns the Olympic Games into a platform for branding and promotion of a nation's political ideas.

If it happens for Australia, why wouldn't it happen anywhere else? Again, taking the focus away from the sport itself. And it makes the Games about the relationships between nations and those funding them and how they have to repay these people in this branding scheme and their teams as figures with political influence and the repayment that occurs from this.

And the reason we don't want this to occur is, A, it promotes tension between nations and within nations, as, obviously, political opinions are quite strong and varied. And, B, it takes away from the purpose of the games as a large-scale mass sporting event and the promotion of unity, not to mention a massive part of our culture globally.

In the absence of politics in the Olympic Games, we see countries no longer needing to promote political messaging in order to pay back funders. And we continue to promote the key values of these games being sport and unity.

So just to sum up my main ideas, I discussed, we need neutrality in politics because it promotes the Olympic values of sport and unity, essentially what the games is all about. It's protecting individuals and supporting Olympians and putting the focus on them and media and public focus on them, rather than political ideas, which is what the games is all about, and I'm proud to affirm. Thank you.

[applause]

KARYS WESTAK: Before I begin with my team's argument, I would like to point out the intrinsic flaws and contradictions made by the opposing team. The first is, as said by the first speaker, that the actions of individual athletes can promote a false image globally. Through the silencing of these athletes, you have the same weigh-up between exposing their right wing views as you do their-- sorry, their extremist views, as you do their own personal views in representative of their country.

There also is a common sense of the public. They understand that some people have extremist views. And although they are on a worldwide stage and a political stage, as I will expand upon it in my argument, the common sense of the public would redeem this.

Also, they said something about individual athletes being forced to represent the views of their country. By implementing a completely politically neutral games, that completely eliminates any opportunity for the athletes to express their individual opinions. Therefore, yes, they are being forced to defend the extremist views of their country, which I will also be extending upon in my argument.

The first speaker also said that an extreme misrepresentation of athletes themselves-- the amount of athletes utilising this worldwide platform to discriminate is extremely little. They did not give an actual specific example of this, which is a clear example of the fact that this isn't actually happening, and therefore, the implementing their model-- that's not an issue that we actually need to solve at this very second.

Their second speaker said that-- they said that it can incite negative change, regarding-- such as the riots in the UK. However, we believe that this is extremely unlikely. The Olympics has a lot of security. It has a lot of values for protection of athletes. And if attacks were to happen-- if the Olympic Committee were to not say anything, that is also extremely political.

The second speaker also said that staying silent is not taking a side, but it is. And an example of this is China in regards to the Russian invasion. While they did not explicitly state their support, they are still actively funding Russian foreign trade, which is obviously a political standpoint, simply by being silent.

The second speaker also made a completely mischaracterisation of the Olympic Games themselves. From the inception of the Olympic Games, it has been about foreign affairs. It has not entirely been about elite athleticism and displaying the elite athleticism of a country. It has been about creating international ties, creating international relationships, and coming together as a world every 4 years to celebrate our countries and to celebrate international ties. So limiting that to just being an expression of athleticism completely defeats the purpose of the inception of the Games.

The second speaker also conceded that there is already a level of political neutrality. So why should we restrict these people further? Why do we take an extreme if there is already political neutrality? And I will be extending upon why this is an issue within my argument.

The first speaker also stated about the French banning hijabs within the Olympic Games. This is not exclusive to the Olympic Games. It is exclusive to the political opinions and the political discriminations within the French government. These would still exist without the worldwide stage of the Olympic Games, and these still exist without them being televised on screen.

If anything, the Olympic Games are giving exposure to these discriminatory nations. And if anything, we should be-- this gives us an opportunity to talk about that more.

And I will now continue on with my team's case. The opposition's model promotes the idea that by implementing the model, political neutrality within a worldwide stage would be extremely beneficial. But as the negative team, we strongly negate this. So to this we say, logistically, how could we tangibly hold a politically neutral Olympic Games?

As previously stated by my first speaker, foreign affairs and international relations is a natural political forum, and I will display this to you through my arguments, the first being the inevitable outrage from both the athletes as well as the general public who are consuming the Olympic Games.

Beneath the current status quo, athletes have the opportunity to display their elite athleticism on a worldwide, multilateral stage. But they also get to exercise their human right of freedom of speech, and they exercise their human right to support their country and their political views on a multilateral stage.

The 2024 Olympic Games-- we as viewers witnessed a Palestinian swimmer tap her country's flag placed upon her arm in support of her country that is currently going-- which is a massive political opinion at the moment. Without this worldwide stage, thousands-- and millions of people, if anything. There are actually 18 satellites, every single 4 years, that televise the games. Without this exposure, so many more people would not have any information or any exposure to the fact that these things are happening, which is extremely, extremely vital.

The Olympic Games themselves invites a lot of people who would not normally exercise political opinions to learn about things, simply by the fact that it is not a politically neutral environment and the fact that we get to express our-- athletes get to express their political opinions.

Under the opposition's model, the only response to this Palestinian swimmer's statement would be to cut a broadcast. Now, imagine the political outrage, both from within this individual and the people watching the Games. Imagine the public outrage that would happen from that. Imagine the public violence that would happen from silencing people on a multilateral stage.

This outrage would, as an effect, be inherently negative, lessening viewership of the games as a public display of protest, as it is, the removal of freedom of speech.

And moving on to my second argument-- if we were to look at previous Games, arguments such as women participating in the games, as well as previous segregations were, at the time, considered extremely political. And now, in the 2024 political landscape, we get to see women participating in the games. We get to see people of all cultures participating in the games, which, if it weren't an extremely political landscape, never would have happened, and we would have simply had these same people-- these same countries with extremely conservative views participating in the games and expressing their opinions on a multilateral stage.

Would we be expected to just stop talking about female athletes if we were to create a completely political neutral environment, as this could be considered, in some countries, a 'controversial topic'? Would that be an expectation underneath the opposition's model? We believe so.

This would obviously have detrimental effects. And moving on to my third argument, it concerns the consistent, ever-changing nature of political landscapes. And an exemplar point of this, as stated briefly by my first speaker, is the recent disability national reform, calling disabled athletes to participate in the Paralympic Games.

Now, previously, it was extremely political and controversial to talk about disabled athletes. Now they have their own games. Underneath the opposition's model, we're talking about completely removing any political landscape and any political movement and completely limiting our ability to move forward in a political manner. And that is why I am proud to negate.

[applause]

TAYLOR HARDING: So today's debate kind of makes 2 main questions, the first of which is, is a politically neutral games possible? And the second is, is having a politically neutral Games a positive-- a beneficial thing or a harmful thing? So under this first question of, Is a politically neutral games possible? what we've found from negative is that it's actually impossible because if the Olympic committees and the athletes don't speak up-- don't speak on these political issues, then they're, therefore, not saying anything.

So they're saying that not talking about violence is condoning it. They brought up this example of, technically, China, wasn't saying anything about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, so therefore, they are supporting this conflict.

But I think it's very important to note the difference between actual governments who are elected because of their political beliefs, talking about politics, compared to people who are there to play sport on an international stage. People aren't going to feel as though a long jumper not talking about some random political ideal, therefore, means that they agree with it. They're just going to say, no, this is the Olympics. The Olympics is about sport.

And as we've stated, under our side-- under our model, people will be aware that the Olympics is a politically neutral kind of event. They're not going to say, why are these random athletes not saying anything? It's because they know that the Olympics is about sport, and therefore, these people-- they're not going to feel like these people aren't saying anything because it's just that politics will not have a place in the Olympics.

And they also stated that, briefly, in their first speaker, that this whole transgender-- whether or not transgender athletes should be allowed to compete-- this whole debate is a political one. And therefore, politics is naturally in the Olympics because of this. But I think it's obviously kind of just common sense to assume that if politics-- if the politics that we're talking about relate to the sport, these will just become rules within the sport, no different to any other rule within the game.

And also, even if the people who are deciding on this debate have to make this one decision on transgender athletes, that doesn't, then, mean that every single political issue can therefore and should therefore be spoken about in the sport and in the Olympics. It's a very-- one obviously relevant and niche thing. That doesn't, therefore, mean we should be talking about war in the Olympics. They're obviously 2 very separate cases.

And then-- so then on to this big question, which is, is having a politically neutral Olympics a positive or a negative thing? I mean, the opposing team is really brought up this idea on free speech, freedom of expression. These athletes should be able to say what they want because humans have the right to free speech.

And I think it's unfair of us-- it's like a violation of us to remove this free speech. And I think it's important to note that free speech in its purest form doesn't even exist because we do have laws on what we can say. We have laws, especially in Australia, about you can't say certain things. So freedom of speech as this perfect ideal is not even something that actually exists in our world.

But also, there are many professions where people are not allowed to talk about politics. If we look at teachers, they are not allowed to share their political views because of the kind of high influence that they hold over people. And people should be able to make their own decisions, not based off what their teacher thinks. And this also applies to athletes. People are allowed to support an athlete without knowing their political identity and views.

And the opposing team is also only acknowledging when personal athletes talk about positive change and trying to implement positive change. They're completely ignoring Olympic committees-- and the Olympic committees of nations, which also are included in this debate under our definition, that can bring harmful-- that can do like harmful things like the French hijabi example.

And on that, they stated that because-- it's actually got us all talking about it anyway. But actually, what we've seen through the French-- people in France with hijabs not being able to compete-- we've actually seen more hatred towards these people. We've seen a rise in Islamophobia in France because they're saying, yeah, these people shouldn't be able to compete. You're right.

Whereas if we were to actually remove the politics from the Olympic Games and allow people of all backgrounds to be able to compete, we would actually see more patriotism for these people and them actually being accepted into this culture, which is actually really important.

And also, they brought up this example of Cathy Freeman inciting positive change because she wore the Aboriginal flag in the 2000 Olympics. But this is just an example of how much influence and platform these athletes have. If we saw how much change she incited by that, imagine how much change can be incited if somebody is saying negative things, if an Olympic Committee is saying negative things, if they're not allowing people of a certain background to compete because of racism.

And then it's also-- we weigh this out. We see under the opposing team's side-- we see a possibility that these athletes are going to incite positive change, which can definitely bring positive things into our world. But it's not making this huge, huge impact if one athlete makes a statement on one political issue.

But what we can see under-- if these athletes use this platform negatively or if these Olympic platforms use this negatively, we can actually see violence being incited. We can see rioting because of the influence that these people have. And that's actually a lot more harmful than any positives that they can bring up.

They also stated that if these people do start kind of trying to promote negative ideals or violence, the common sense of the public would just mitigate this because people can think for themselves. But if we look at sport, we see people being heavily influenced by their sporting-- the people that they look up to in sport. People are impressionable. Especially if you have children watching these Olympic Games whose brains are in crucial stages of development, they are extremely impressionable.

And then the opposing team also brought up this idea that security will stop any violence that is possible and that also TVs will censor any harmful messaging. We have 2 responses to this, the first of which is that terrorism attacks and acts of political violence do occur or are at least planned. We see this with the recent Taylor Swift concert having to be completely cancelled.

So if we see the Olympics being cancelled because there was threat of terrorism, because we have allowed it to get so political, this is going to cause so much harm, hatred, and fear in our world, which is so incredibly damaging. And we don't see negative really actually engaging with this, aside just saying that, security will like stop any violence, and moving on.

But this is actually a really real threat with increasing political tensions of our world, where the world is getting increasingly more political. Tensions are rising. People are becoming more extremist. And this can easily infiltrate its way into political spheres. And we can see this if we allow the Olympics to get more political.

And then, also, secondly, they've stated that if an athlete does say something really negative or harmful or discriminatory, television will just be able to cut this because there's a live delay. What about the people who are there? What about the people who are filming this? What about social media? There are so many ways to get around the 5-minute delay on live television that this is just not an adequate response by Neg.

They also said that under our side of the case, some athletes will also be forced to comply with their nation's political views because they're not allowed to say anything. But no, they don't have to comply with political views like having to be funded by somebody who's destroying your sacred land. They just have to go and compete because their career is not about politics. It's about sport. Athletes don't get into athleticism because they want to be a politician. If they did, they would go into politics. These people are here because of sport, and that is what the Olympics should be about.

And negative even conceded this when they even stated that the Olympics are about coming together every 4 years and create relationships with other countries to show athleticism. And we agree with this. But if we involve politics-- if we let politics continue to come into this, we will see political divides. We already see there to be political divides forming in the Olympic Games between nations, like when the wrong national anthem is played for a nation or they introduce as the wrong country. We see this creating these political tensions.

If we allow the Olympic Games to get even more political, these tensions are just going to increase, as opposed to doing what the negative team said and legitimately just coming together every 4 years to support athleticism because that is what the Olympics is supposed to be about. And they also say that there will be this outrage of cancelling athletes' speeches, which is political in itself.

[bell ringing]

But it won't be because these athletes will know that they're not allowed to speak on this anyway. They won't be giving these political speeches. And with this Palestinian example, this Palestinian athlete will still be allowed to wear her country's flag because that is how the Olympics work. Wearing a flag and saying, yes, I won because I'm from this country is not-- that's not political. That's just how the Olympics work.

And, yeah, they've really stated that-- they really were hashing on this idea that organic change would never have happened because we wouldn't have been able to talk about politics and we would never have female athletes competing in the Olympics. But people can talk about politics. Governments can talk about politics. People can lobby to get governments to open up pathways for female sports.

We just-- we are arguing that having these political nations committees and having these athletes talk about politics, especially things like war that actually aren't personally relevant to the athlete, is going to do more harm than good because of all the harms that we have brought up that negative has not been able to mitigate. And so, yeah, so to conclude my team's case, we see that under our side of the case, we have the possibility of violence and these really damaging messages being shared.

[bell ringing]

And, yeah, proud to affirm.

[applause]

LOLA MEREWETHER: So similarly to the opposition, I think there are 2 main clashes in this debate, the first being, what would a world with a politically neutral Olympic games actually look like? And the second being, is it actually possible to create a politically neutral Olympic Games? So in terms of the first clash, the first thing we hear from the affirmative is that this model would put a greater focus on the actual athleticism of the Olympic Games.

However, athletes are not just their athletic ability. They're also their political beliefs. And under the status quo, we believe that we can combine the appreciation for athleticism with appreciating the upstanding political views of athletes. We think that the opposition's model is dehumanising for athletes because it reduces them to only their athletic ability, which is more than what they are.

Secondly, we hear from the opposition that their model would protect the safety of individuals. However, we think that under that model, individuals are now forced to interact with people they may be uncomfortable with because doing otherwise would be seen as a political act, which is outlawed under their model.

For example, obviously there's large political tensions, currently, between Israel and Palestine. Under the opposition's model, an Israeli athlete and a Palestinian athlete would be forced to interact if they came into contact because doing otherwise would be seen as a political act. And that might make them uncomfortable. That might make them feel unsafe. So it's not actually protecting their safety.

We also hear from the opposition that their model reduces tensions between individual athletes and countries. However, we think that the tensions that are currently expressed within the Olympic games would still exist outside of the Olympic Games.

So, for example, if there's a war happening that makes 2 countries tense, that's still happening outside of the Olympic games. So these tensions are still occurring. It's just that now the athletes can't discuss these within the Olympic Games, which allows the resentment to grow because they can't express their opinions about things. And furthermore, as I already stated, this means that countries that have these political tensions are now forced to interact and ignore the fact that they have a tense history, which only makes things more tense.

We also, then, hear from the opposition that politics should be up to governments, so we shouldn't be allowing athletes within the Olympic Games or the Olympic Games themselves to express political opinions. However, politics, specifically international politics, which is often what is brought up in the Olympic games, affects everyone-- politicians, governments, and individuals. So we believe that governments should actually not be the only people who get to express political views because that leads to a sort of dictatorship and a lack of representation of the actual people within society.

What the Olympic Games does currently is it enables the views of the people to actually be publicised and upheld, allowing the public's voice to be heard. And also, we think that under the status quo, governments aren't prevented from engaging in politics. Politics can still be up to governments, but individuals can also have their say via the Olympic Games, except that under the status quo, we don't restrict the political expression of citizens of the country who are athletes in the Olympic Games.

And we also think that the individual political expression seen within the Olympic Games provides incentive for the government to get more involved in politics because it brings up issues that are relevant to the citizens that governments can then respond to.

We then hear from the opposition that young people are influenced by political views depicted in the Olympic Games, and that can be harmful because they can be subject to misinformation or bias. However, we think that, currently, because the Olympic Games holds pretty much every country in the world, these young people are being exposed to an array of opinions which actually encourages them to develop their own opinion with a wealth of different perspectives and as much information as they need to make a just and accurate decision.

And also, we think that young people would still be influenced under their model. For example, if there is a war going on, which is, objectively, a political event, and no one in the Olympic Games is saying anything and the young people are seeing that, they might think, oh, OK, this war is not really a big deal. Or whoever is winning this war-- there's nothing, really, to be said against them because no one's speaking up about it. So they still develop political beliefs from this political neutrality of the Olympic Games. So this is not really a harm that's minimised at all under the opposition's model.

And, yeah, we generally think that only-- the main reason that young people would be influenced by the Olympic Games politically is because of how big they are and how international they are, rather than the fact that they're political. And again, as we said, we don't think that the Olympic games can actually be politically neutral under the affirmative model, and so young people would still be influenced.

We then hear from the opposition that athletes would be forced to assimilate into ideas that they don't agree with under the status quo. And they gave the example of Gina Rinehart because she funds Australian teams. Australian teams are then bound by her beliefs. However, she'd still be funding Australian teams under the affirmative model, so it's not really clear how under the affirmative model, these athletes are no longer bound by these beliefs of the people who are funding the teams or the beliefs they don't agree with. It's just that now, under the affirmative model, the athletes no longer have the opportunity to speak out against these beliefs if they don't agree with them because that's considered as not politically neutral, and that's outlawed.

We also hear from the affirmative that society would not be mad about this change because they would know that the Olympic Games are not political. However, I don't think we'd have this topic if everyone agreed that the Olympic Games are not political. Clearly, they are political in some respect, and that's why we have this topic. And I think that there would undeniably be a social response to this change because it's essentially censorship. And historically, people don't appreciate censorship.

And I think that was a kind of mischaracterisation that people will see people in the Olympic games not really talking about political issues and then see that there's a rule banning like political topics in the Olympic games and think, oh, OK, that's why. I don't think they just have this response of, oh, OK, that's why they're not talking about it. I think they'd question why and express some resentment to this rule.

The opposition then also says that the Olympic Games are for sports and that the inclusion of politics in the Olympic games actually takes away from the core values of the Olympic Games. However, when the Olympic games were formed in ancient Greece, they were formed to promote multilateralism. And this is demonstrated by the fact that, in ancient Greece, ships coming from other countries to participate in the Olympics had to be accepted regardless of their tensions or political relationships.

So from their inception, the Olympic Games were actually political. So we think that politics is actually one of the core values of the Olympic games. And allowing countries to express their opinions on a public stage, in connection with opinions of other countries, is a core value of the Olympic Games.

The opposition also kind of contradicted themselves on this argument by saying that the values of the Olympic Games are sport and unity. However, we think that unity is inherently political because it relates to the sort of ties and allyship and relationships between countries, which is a political thing. And so, therefore, we think that making a politically neutral Olympic games would actually go against the core values of the Olympics, as it presents a false sense of unity.

And then, lastly, under this clash, we hear from the opposition that the Olympic Games should not be a platform for branding and promotions. And they used fossil fuels as an example of this. And while I agree that maybe fossil fuels is not the best thing that the Olympic Games could promote, this is how the Olympic Games receives their funding, through these political forms of advertising and promotions. And the Olympic Games would not exist without these because they just wouldn't have the funds to pay their athletes, to get the resources that they need. So we actually need this political advertising in order to ensure that the Olympic Games actually continues.

The opposition then also mentioned that sort of people would be safer because it would reduce the risk of terrorist attacks. However, under the affirmative model, the Olympic Committee can't speak out against terrorist attacks because that's considered political. And they can't say that these discriminatory acts are wrong, which would go a long way in preventing those things from happening again. However, they're unable to do that under the affirmative model.

On to my second clash, which is, is it actually possible to create a politically neutral Olympic Games? We firstly hear from the opposition that-- they argue that not saying anything about an issue is not, in itself, in a political-- is a political stance, but we inherently disagree with that. The Olympic Games themselves possess an immense political power as a forum for every country in the world to come together. And all the events there are televised. And in denying certain causes power, you actively decide that their cause is not worth the help that the Olympics could provide, which we think is a political stance.

And a kind of example to demonstrate my point is that recently, in the UN Security Council, there was a vote on whether there should be a ceasefire in the Israeli-Palestine conflict, and the US abstained. But that abstinence was not actually a demonstration of political neutrality. It came across as a demonstration of support for Israel.

And similarly, the Olympic Games abstaining from allowing support for certain causes is a demonstration of support for the opposing causes. So, for example, they used-- they used the example of France not allowing hijabs in the Olympic Games. However, we think it's also a political stance to then allow people with hijabs to wear hijabs in the Olympic Games. So you're actually eliminating political neutrality-- or you're not actually instituting political neutrality.

And they also, under this argument, conceded that you can't actually ensure political neutrality because they tried to say that people would be exposed to political beliefs regardless of the media being able to edit things. But then that shows us that anyone can just say something that is political, and we can't actually stop them from doing that because the media is not effective enough. So at the end of this debate, what do we believe?

[bell ringing]

We believe that a world with a politically neutral Olympic games would actually be worse for society, and that it's physically not possible in the first place. And that's why I'm proud to negate.

[applause]

ANDREW PYE: A member of the adjudication panel will now deliver the adjudication and announce the results of the debate. Immediately following this, I would like to welcome to the stage Jordi Austin, director of Arts, Sport, and Initiatives for the Department of Education, Dr Sylvia Corish, executive director of Student Support and Specialist Programs for the Department of Education, Murat Dizdar, Secretary for the Department of Education, and Frier Bentley, executive director of External Engagement for the University of Sydney.

[applause]

ELINOR STEPHENSON: Awesome. Hi, everyone. Firstly, I want to begin by thanking all of the speakers today for a really fantastic debate. The panel unanimously really enjoyed it. And I think that this is an excellent example of some fantastic debating. It's obviously a huge achievement to make it to the final. So first of all, I just want to begin by once again congratulating all the speakers, if we can give them a little clap.

[applause]

And I also want to thank their teachers and the teachers who have helped and guided all of the competitors in this tournament. The premier's debating competition is an enormous debating tournament, probably one of the biggest in the world, and it truly just would not operate without the hard work of your teachers. So you should all be very grateful to them. And I know that whenever we see such excellent debates, as adjudicators, we are, too.

So what I'll do in this adjudication is give a couple of thoughts of the panel on the debate. Then I'll-- as in feedback, thoughts. Then I'll explain how we saw the debate analytically. And finally, for some suspense, I will tell you the result at the end.

So in terms of feedback, as I said, we thought this was a great debate. We also thought it was a very close one, reflected in what initially was a split on the panel, although it became a consensus through discussion. In terms of 2 pieces of feedback, we would say, firstly, this debate would have benefited from a little bit more characterisation of what the status quo looks like, what kinds of politics tend to be espoused by athletes, what kinds of politics people might want to express at the Olympic Games.

I would note also that the topic for this debate suggests that the Olympic games should remain apolitical, which I think would mean that teams could benefit from thinking a little bit more about the level of political neutrality that already exists at the Games, how the Games go about regulating politics, and what kinds of political expression may be slip through the cracks. I think that that analysis could have given us a richer understanding of what it necessarily is that we're keeping, that we are remaining, and also perhaps the starting point of the Olympic games in terms of how political they are.

The second piece of feedback we would give is that I think this debate could benefit a bit more from some weighing between different moral aspirations of the Olympic Games. It's, of course, possible that there are multiple values of the Olympics, that they have sporting value and political value and international value, and so on. But I think at times where those might run into each other or trade off against each other-- teams could think a little bit more about which one is relatively important and which one we should prioritise.

All right. I hope that feedback is useful. Let's get into how we saw the debate. We thought there were 2 parts to adjudicating this debate-- firstly, a question of whether athletes should have the right to express their political beliefs and identity at the Olympics and then, secondly, whether or not expressing politics at the Olympics tends to lead to positive or negative social change.

So let's start with, I guess, the question of freedom of expression. Here, I would note that both teams agree that athletes can have salient political views, and I think that negative does a good job of explaining that athletes can, in many instances, use their platform to forward social issues. I think they provide some great examples of this, and I think they also explain that, for some athletes, their identity and their lived experience is inherently political.

As a note of feedback or commentary here, I think we could have heard a little bit more explanation as to why freedom of expression is generally something that's important, even when people are saying things we might not like so much. But I do think that this explains that freedom of expression can be a very valuable thing and can be laden with a lot of cultural meaning for people-- can lead to important political changes.

Affirmative's response to this is to note that we don't always give people freedom of speech, and I think that they point to some correct and very clever instances where we do restrict freedom of speech. They note, of course, that we don't let people say things where it's clearly harmful. And they note, also, that many people are not allowed to say everything they think at their place of work, which might be a principle that we also apply to athletes.

They don't. I would note, though, explain necessarily why that must apply to the Olympics, why the Olympics is a place of work where people should not have the right to express their views. But this does explain, at least, that this is a principle that does not extend infinitely and that we should trade off against practical outcomes in the debate.

That means at the end of this principled clash, we would believe that we should probably err towards preserving people's right to express themselves, except when there are big harms or when they cause problems for society at large, which means that the second part of the debate, where we're considering whether or not this does lead to positive or negative social change, is pretty important. There are 2 parts to this question. Firstly, is the kind of speech or the kind of expression that athletes do likely to be good or bad in itself? And then, secondly, how would people respond to it? Would they be receptive or non-receptive?

Let's start with whether the kind of speech is good. Here, affirmative tells us that there's certainly a risk that this speech focuses on divisive issues. And I think that they point, in particular, to the fact that athletes might be forced to represent views that they themselves don't agree with and that they find morally problematic-- for instance, because of corporate sponsorships or because of the demands of their governments. And they explain that is something which would obviously be very harmful to athletes. They additionally suggest that sometimes athletes themselves might have divisive ideas, which could lead to harm when given the platform of the Olympics.

We thought that negative, though, did quite a good job counter-characterising the incentives that athletes might have and explaining their athletes, on net, would likely to want to express good and useful and productive ideas. They explained that, generally, the kinds of things that you would want to say on the Olympic stage would be about issues you care deeply about that might have salience to because of your identity or your lied experience, politics that were really meaningful to you and that people were likely to care about.

And they noted that, potentially, actually giving people the right not to be politically neutral could push back on some of those government or corporate pressures that forced athletes to misrepresent themselves, which I think allows them to co-opt some of the rhetoric that we get from affirmative about how it would be unjust for people to be tied up in the image of their nation without being able to express themselves. So I think that negative does do a good job here of characterising the importance of letting people speak for themselves.

Affirmative's response to this is quite clever. They say, well, you can express yourself in other ways. You don't necessarily need to do it through the Olympics. And indeed, there's maybe many other fora that are better suited to political speech than the sporting field.

Negative, though, I think is able to identify, uniquely, why the Olympics is a good place to express politics. They suggest that lots of people pay attention to the Olympics who wouldn't necessarily otherwise pay attention to politics and that this is a place where athletes, uniquely, can access a platform as opposed to, I guess, political pundits or politicians, which means that for a pretty important set of athletes, this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something like represent their flag or represent a cause that they care very much about.

So at the end of this part of the clash, we were persuaded that, on balance, the kind of issues that people talked about tended to be good ones, tended to be thought-provoking and speak to things that people in the community cared about. There was, of course, a risk that there were divisive, but we thought, on balance, they were good.

Finally, let's talk about how people would respond to it. This is where affirmative argues that, potentially, where people express political views at the Olympics-- even if we might agree with them, but they're divisive, it can cause things like safety risks where people react negatively to them and where people are increasingly extreme or radicalised.

Negative has a couple of pushbacks to this argument. Firstly, I think they do some mitigation to the argument to suggest that there are ways the Olympics can adapt to this risk. They can do things like increase safety measures. We don't think that this entirely defeats the risk, but I think it does make it more speculative than it was when first presented by affirmative.

Secondly, negative suggests that this problem of violence or radicalisation could be symmetrical. It could occur on both sides of the debate. And the reason they provide for that is that when you don't speak out about a political issue, people often perceive that as a tacit endorsement, whether or not it really is, such that when the Olympics or when athletes fail to speak up about social injustice, that could still be something which radicalises people and makes people angry, meaning that, potentially, some degree of political radicalisation exists on both sides of the debate, which I think also perhaps does not entirely delete this affirmative argument, but does mitigate it or make it more marginal.

Finally, negative notes that this argument is probably contingent on proving that people would say things that incited violence. And if the kinds of speech that people tended to do were not necessarily-- like they might be contentious, but not necessarily things that incited violence, not necessarily discriminatory or particularly angry, then it was relatively unlikely that people would respond with outright violence and hate, which I think, broadly, does a pretty good job of explaining that while safety concerns might be marginally higher where you allow people to express their politics, that was generally quite speculative and something that we thought was relatively unlikely.

So at the end of the debate, we were weighing that marginal increase in the potential for division or the potential for unsafety against what we thought was quite an analytically rigorous explanation of why athletes had important views to express and why expressing those views might persuade people who otherwise wouldn't be exposed to them and would also action athletes' moral right to express their views, ideas that matter to them that they cared a lot about.

We thought that set of material occurred in a greater set of cases and, for the principled reason, was likely to be morally important. And so at the end of the debate, we did award this debate to side negative. But congratulations to both teams and thanks very much for all their hard work.

[applause]

Before we move to the presentations, I'd like to invite a representative from both teams to thank the other team and congratulate them and so forth. So, yeah.

[applause]

NORAH DAVIS: Good afternoon. On behalf of Kirrawee High School, I would like to thank everyone for coming today, both present and on the live stream. We'd also like to thank everyone that helped in coordinating this debating event. We know how much time and energy it takes to put into a day like this, and we greatly appreciate it. Also, to the Sydney Boys representative for coming to time-keep and everyone working behind the scenes.

Finally, Newtown High School of Performing Arts, congratulations for making it this far. It's a huge achievement to get here. Since 2006, no non-academic selective schools have won the state championship. We would like to congratulate you on this achievement. Either team that won today-- we are extremely proud of this success. To receive such a high rank in the state is such a huge achievement. So well done.

[applause]

JOSEPHINE BRADFIELD: Hi, everyone. Firstly, congratulations, Kirrawee. We really enjoyed today's debate. We came into this with the hope that we would gain some really important experience, and I think you did, too. I also hear you're in Year 11, so we wish you luck with all of your future debates. We'll be rooting for you in the competition next year. So thank you for making this a really great and insightful debate, and congratulations on getting this far.

I wanted to also acknowledge our fifth and sixth members, Emma Walker and Raf Gonzalez, who are sitting in the front row, who we would not have got to this level without. They're absolutely integral to our team. They are our team. So congratulations, also, on getting this far.

We want to thank Miss Ellis, who is our coordinator, who is not looking at me. [laughs] We appreciate all of the work that you put in. I felt like you were running around all the time, trying to organise this, and we acknowledge that and thank you, seriously. We really appreciate it. And we wouldn't have got this far without your help.

Thank you to the support from Newtown for all of the staff and students that came to watch or that were watching us back at home. Thank you, seriously. We appreciate your support so much, and we're so glad that you're here and getting to watch us do something so exciting.

Thank you to our families and friends and people that came to watch and support. And thank you to all of the people that came to watch us. We've done years of online debates, so this gave us a real experience of what debating should feel like. And we were so excited to have a live audience. So thank you, everybody, for coming.

Thank you to the Arts Unit for organising this, to Sydney Uni for giving us this Great Hall to do this in. Thank you to the organisers, to the adjudicators, to the timekeepers, and everyone who was working behind the scenes. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

[applause]