Video transcript
NSW Premier's Debating Challenge 2024 – Years 9 and 10 State Final

[intro music]

JUSTINE CLARKE: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and students, and welcome to the Teachers Federation Conference Centre for the Premier's Debating Challenge for Years 9 and 10 State Final.

I'd like to acknowledge the Gadigal people who are the Traditional Custodians of this land on which we meet today. I'd also like to pay respect to Elders both past and present as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure that every Aboriginal and/or 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 joining us today to witness what I'm sure will be a wonderful final between these 2 teams.

I'd like to acknowledge our venue partner the Teachers Federation and thank them for facilitating our state final here today. I'd also like to acknowledge our prize partner ACCO Brands Australia and supporter Holding Redlich for their ongoing support of the Premier's Debating Challenge. Very grateful for this support, and I'd like to welcome a representative from Holding Redlich partner Helena Golovanoff.

We also have some special guests from the Department of Education with us today, including Dr Sylvia Corish, Executive Director, Student Support and Specialist Programs, Ms Jordi Austin, Director, Arts, Sport and Initiatives, and Ms Marianne Powles, leader of the Arts Unit. All 3, great supporters of our speaking programs. So thank you as always.

And a big welcome to our 2 teams and to supporters of the 2 teams. Thank you to your principals and your debating coordinators for all you do to encourage debating in your schools. It's such a valuable extracurricular but we all appreciate how busy schools and teachers are. So thank you to all of the teachers who enter their students into the Premier's Debating Challenge for making the time to offer this opportunity to your students.

Our 2 finalists today, as I said, are Hornsby Girls High School and James Ruse Agricultural High School. I wish both teams the very best. Congratulations on making it this far and have fun today.

Our chairperson is Rianna Poolman, and timekeeper is Samantha Cowie, both from Illawarra Sports High School. Illawarra Sports High School were semifinalists in this competition. I'd like to thank them for looking after proceedings today. I'll now hand over to Rianna to take over from here.

[applause]

RIANNA POOLMAN: Thank you, Justine. Welcome to the 2024 state final of the Premier's Debating Challenge for Years 9 and 10 for the Teasdale Trophy. This competition began in 1950 with the donation of a trophy by Charles and Fred Teasdale for an annual debating competition at intermediate level between high schools on the north shore.

Over the years, it has expanded into a state-wide competition. This year, 316 teams from 226 schools across the state entered the Premier's Debating Challenge. Debates took place both in person and online.

On your program, you will see listed the names of the schools that won their zones as well as those that went on to compete in the knockout finals. Congratulations to all of those schools for their success in this prestigious competition.

Today's debate is between Hornsby Girls High School and James Ruse Agricultural High School. The affirmative team from James Ruse Agricultural High School is first speaker Sophie Allworth, second speaker Jacinta Kong, third speaker Nina Zhang and fourth speaker Saanvi Kashyap. Their coach is Amelia Bertram and Tiana Saito.

The negative team from Hornsby Girls High School is first speaker Catherine Yuan, second speaker Yashita Mohan, third speaker Ishani Sri Ganeshwaran, fourth speaker Amber McLean and their coach is Anupurna Bhattacharya. The adjudicators for this final are Jeremiah Edagbami, Maurice Lam and Aman Muhammad.

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 we should ban people under 16 from using social media. Now, please welcome the first affirmative speaker, Sophie, to open the debate.

[applause]

SOPHIE ALLWORTH: Young children have proven that they are unfit to participate in the rabbit hole that is social media in the rise of garbage content and corporations that are, at their best, unfit to protect them.

As the affirmative team, our model looks like social media being banned for those under 16 to be uploading a government-verified ID onto Instagram or Facebook or Snapchat or whatever. This looks like, for example, like Medicare card. You get it at 15, and once it's been like a year, you're eligible to go on Instagram. And you have to be taking a picture of yourself holding the ID, for example, like this, and then uploading it onto the social media website.

Another example could be like driver's licence. And we don't think that school IDs is like acceptable for the reasons that they're so easily forged. And we don't think that the opposition can say that just use your parents' because, intuitively, for example, like detection software will not buy a 13-year-old girl holding an ID says that my date of birth is in 1975.

We feel like the setup-- just to start with setup-- the burden today is to prove that this change can avoid the development of unhealthy habits in children. We feel like, number one, why is the age of 16 uniquely fit for social media usage? We feel like number one, it's a fair and decent age. They're not adults, but they're considered responsible for themselves and their choices.

An example is, for example, like the PDHPE syllabus finishes when you're like 16. 2, it's like the age of consent, and 3, you're allowed to register to vote. For example, you're considered politically able, even though you can't vote yet. And number 4, you have your driver's licence. And for these reasons, we basically considered them sufficiently informed and responsible enough to manage and create social media content.

So number 2, what is the status quo and why is it not working? We feel like A, social media corporations have a big stake in young children on social media. We feel like they are huge demographic of users, which means that they have greater opportunities for viewerships and advertisement, as it is an enormous part of their revenue.

We feel like for these reasons, they are unincentivised to care about enforcing the under 13-year-old ban that is in place currently. What does this look like? This is like a current pathetic 'What is your date of birth?' You can scroll your month, day, and year of when you were born and completely lie about it. So basically, any child on the internet is able to access and to download. So what is the evidence of this? We have 10-year-old influencers, and we have the rise of horrendously mindless content on social media.

So onto my first argument, which is that social media exposes children under 16 to a world of often explicit, addictive and threatening content. So number one, what does social media look like? It looks like A, an algorithm made by Instagram, TikTok or Facebook. For example, you use search history in the app, and they're like always thinking like, what have you loved, what have you scrolled past to determine what you want to see later.

And they're also always asking themselves, how can they stay on this app for longer? How can we keep them hooked onto this app so we get more money? And this neglects the correctness of the information on Instagram and neglects the value of the content.

Number 2, we feel like people post whatever they want. For example, like Instagram Reels, there's basically no restrictions because it's completely unfiltered because this is what viewers want. They want to have their 'freedom of speech'. But we feel like this is like people-- this looks like people on the internet outright saying that, get over your depression, mental health doesn't exist, or like homophobia is good.

And sometimes this looks like maybe even posting pictures of car accidents and crashes that I've actually seen on social media and even harmless things. For example-- well, 'harmless things' like people like influencers. For example, people posting pictures of themselves in expensive outfits or photoshopping to be as skinny or muscular as possible. And also like maybe not posting on days when you were bloated or you had a cheat day or something, even on Instagram Stories and your close friends.

So why do people post this? Number one, there's external validation, for example, like beauty standards. People want comments. For example, I want to be like you or keep up the good work. Number 2, to conform. For example, keeping up with trends. For example, there's a trend that you have-- especially Chinese media where you'll have fish-- you're able to fit a fish in your collarbones, for example, you're allowed to fit a headphone around your waist.

And we feel like people are also hateful on Instagram-- or on social media rather. The evidence of this is like, for example, mocking comments, for example, fat shaming, for example, saying things like you're cringe, you're disgusting.

And maybe, sure, a 10-year-old might say something that's pretty stupid or silly, but it doesn't mean that they should be exposed to copious amounts of criticism. It doesn't mean that they should-- copious criticism at the opposition's worst and at the opposition's best, they shouldn't be posting private or personal information about themselves in the first place.

So why is this harmful for people under 16 specifically? Number one, even if it's not criticised or even if you don't post anything, we still get the following. We still get a lot of impact later. The characterisation of under 16-year-olds is number one, fairly impressionable, for example, is something like pretty incorrect. For example, they find something as pretty or looks good or they seem correct.

They're more inclined to believe it because A, their education has not finished. They are not super aware of harms of certain opinions that they don't fully understand and blindly follow. For example, homophobia-- people tend to grow out of this as they become more and more informed, but it is a sad reality that it occurs in many children because they are exposed to this content. And they're like, huh, I can be hateful for the sake of it.

And B, they might not care because, looking for external validation-- because they're looking for external validation. For example, I want people to like and to accept me because they are forming their identity, and they need this validation to feel OK with themselves, as especially as this teenage years, 13, 14, 15 is a pretty insecure time for them. Or they just want to seem cool.

So we feel like the impacts of this is number one, we get increased exposure on social media. We get toxic culture of beauty standards. And this often leads to explicit content. This is especially bad because of the impressionable part I proved earlier. And also, that when they're exposed to things on social media, it's really unfiltered.

So there are often things like car crashes, accidents, people going through surgery. Even though some of those things might not be super harmful, they still haven't been exposed to that or correctly informed about, how do I react to this scenario?

Furthermore, there's also a very proven cycle of addiction that occurs because the algorithms are so enticing, because maybe I'll scroll for a couple more, one more, and then I'm going to do my homework. But no, because one more and one more and one more comes to cycles and hours and hours.

If you look on your screen time right now, it's likely to be 3, 4 hours without you even intending it to because that's just the unfortunate way it is. Which leads me on to my second argument, how banning social media for under 16s promotes greater social interaction from a young age.

Number one, we feel like we reduce the reliance on social media as a means to socialise under our change for the reasons that you're not allowed to if you're under 16. We feel like this means that not many people will have access, and this will be not the main mode of socialising because you can't use Instagram to talk to your friends anymore. You have to use messages. You have to call them. You have to actually go up to them in person. For example-- and we feel like right now-- yeah, OK.

Second of all, we feel like, after the change, there is a lot less addiction to social media, and it is a lot less prominent and reliant simply because it doesn't exist for you. Number 2, why is it important that a 16-year-old socialises specifically? Number one, we feel like you get to develop their skills. For example, talking in person is like essential skill. You feel more socially connected, for example, like meaningful connections.

Would you feel better if someone is comforting you via text or if they're comforting you on the phone or in person? Number 2, we feel like they are less reliable when regulating time-- no, they are more reliable when regulating their time, and there's a lot more awareness, for example. There are not many things that are more addictive than social media.

Number 3, it instils the value of in-person relationships from a young age, which are unlikely to break off these relationships. For example, they can maintain these developed skills beyond the age of 16. And beyond the age of 16, you can not be addicted to social media as much for the reasons that you think, oh, being in person is a lot more fun, anyway. Why would I go on social media that much? And for example, your-- yeah, OK.

And number 3, why this is uniquely important, we feel like the opposition has to defend a world where social media is prioritised over real-life socialising. And for these reasons, I'm very, very proud to affirm.

[applause]

CATHERINE YUAN: The affirmative team is advocating for a world that socially isolates children, stripping them of their rights to communication with long-distance family members, restricting their knowledge and awareness of modern issues and regressing society, receding efforts to do this ban of our past decades.

So first, I'd like to begin with some rebuttal of the opposition's case. So the affirmative first speaker stated that, with their ideal model, they would reduce social media addiction. And this is entirely untrue. So illegal street drugs are still being abused, movies are still being portrayed, and this doesn't stop people from being exposed to this kind of media. So it's not going to work.

And they also say that it exposes children to a bad world, but they also neglected to express that it's a positive world with relative guidance and advice. And they said that companies are a big stakeholder on how children get past loopholes, but the affirmative fails to explain just how this ban will work.

So banning currently accounts with 10-year-olds, but it doesn't mean children can't create another account with a different name and their parents' email. So logistically, it's hard to implement because children always find loopholes. And we find that this will not only mitigate but also increase because with abstinence from something increases the desire to keep on finding these loopholes.

And also Photoshop. So they stated that there's a post for external validation. However, social media at its core acts as grounds for information and personal belief transmission, and it's merely an extension of reality. So beauty standards won't be deteriorated or mitigated through banning of social media, because there are still advertisements, and there are physical conveyances such as women talking. It's just school in general spreading these kinds of beauty standards.

But even if this is true, the toxic algorithms they stated will cause less addiction to children. They have this addiction still. And as we know, when there is demand, there's supply. So we predict that there's going to be a rise in other forms of harmful media.

So I want to preface by stating that we are not saying social media is completely beneficial, and we acknowledge there are harmful aspects, but just focusing on all the benefits social media can bring in retrospective. So for this reason, the negative team proposes a counter model to the ban in which restrictions, instead of just a complete hardline ban, will be implemented.

So for this counter model, we believe that the opposition banning is unrealistic. And our current status quo, which includes restrictions on social media for Australians under 16, is already self-sufficient and beneficial. But we still believe this movement can be further enhanced, which leads us to our proposed counter model. We have seen from previous instances that children will always be able to find loopholes to access social media, as I stated in my rebuttal.

So rather than banning social media completely, which is a rather harsh movement being argued by the affirmative team, we are encouraging a softer approach, which implements the government's movement of restricting and filtering certain harmful aspects of social media. This will allow children under 16 to foster firm, positive values around social media and will not cause the villainisation of the government for banning something that we enjoy as the demographic of children.

So we would also push large companies such as Meta, TikTok and Snapchat to review their content more often to reduce the amount of negative, inappropriate content on their platforms. And we think that this will have a much better harm than what the affirmative team is proposing.

So in this speech, I will explore 4 benefits of social media. So first, communication, then community, awareness and education and then finally, adapting to the progressing technological world. My second speaker will then elaborate on positive echo chambers related to social media and mental health and social health. So now on to my substantives.

Social media provides digital communities, including those who are discriminated in real life, such as ethnic minorities. It provides a sense of community, like an oasis of belonging, in a society that constantly focuses on difference, separating and segregating those who are different to them.

So children of multicultural heritage finding support online and maybe even living in a predominantly white area and feeling discriminated against in reality, they find social media as some sort of a haven and gives a vision of people who look similar, enjoy the same kind of experiences and echoing the message that they are not alone. Social media empowers minorities by representing them, increasing confidence and overall well-being in our society.

So for cultural communities, kids can join communities, explore their heritage and learn more about their culture, which is something that we see lacking in predominantly white areas such as Australia, United States or England.

So in terms of other demographics which are segregated, such as the LGBTQ+ community who are discriminated and vilified in real life for their differences, can find solace online. Where in a wider community, there are more people who suffer from this similar discrimination. They can connect and feel belonging. So it also empowers these so-called 'outcasts' in society to express and embrace their identity, which we think is extremely important.

So also women and young girls in social media. So diet culture is mitigated through social media as healthy eating and body positivity is celebrated and actually on the rise in terms of social media exposure. And it influences young children, especially, to love healthy relationships with food. And so we can overturn and break the constant cycle of extreme weight loss and improve our pervasive culture, that is, beauty, and revamp dietary culture so we are educated and moving forward as a society and not repeating the same mistakes of our past.

So now to awareness. So independent learning is fostered through social media, where curated feeds inform children of world events and current contexts as a portal for enlightenment. So we see this through ads that spread awareness, such as TikTok currently promoting Gaza awareness on the Palestinian and Israel war. And we think this is essential, as it prompts children's curiosity to learn and be influenced on such a vital topic in society today.

So this constant positive exposure to the world, it provides children with a holistic view of the world and its sometimes unideal realities. So it negates the harm of parents' one-sided, rigid views influencing the child. So children in areas with particularly conservative or right-sided values often grow up believing and claiming these values as their own. So this includes, for example, parents holding controversial political views that they then pass on to their children.

So with social media's informative qualities, multiple-- conversational videos that cover a broad variety of topics and personal information, they're very susceptible to-- children who are very susceptible to this kind of picking up information can create their own holistic understanding and personal conclusions of societal issues, rather than having to take direct information from their parents.

So this also fosters change and positive progress in society, such as the rigid awareness and willingly for action around climate change. So vital and current topic that is on the rise currently, so Greta Thunberg, through the use of social media, prompted the protests, the awareness about this topic that is so vital to our current world. And we think that, through social media, this can continue to happen.

So a quite leisurely activity entertainment is social media, and it's a vital part of a person's childhood, so YouTube videos, TikTok trends, et cetera. And if we rip this norm away, won't it outrage and kind of divide the inevitable? Because generations who already grew up with this kind of access now have a sort of social barrier between this new generation who won't have access to this kind of fun thing.

So finally-- so next is communication, which is vital for reaching a full potential, like in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So social connections. For children to reach their full potential and self-actualisation, which we think is very important, and reach their goals, social media must be available to children over 16 so they can communicate freely, talking to relatives overseas and just allowing for their mental health to have a full and varied support system so they can kind of rotate around who they express their feelings to.

So technological advancements-- and so for these reasons on progressing among society, communication, and all of that, we are very proud to negate. Thank you.

[applause]

JACINTA KONG: So the negative team went wrong today by undermining and being extremely uncharitable to the characterisation of what social media realistically look like in our world today. We thought that social media, even though they had positive aspects, was more likely to have lots of brain rot, toxic opinions, things that were very controversial and have very extreme opinions.

We thought this was what social media was likely going to look like. And even if the negative team were able to prove that they had a positive aspect to it, we thought that this negative aspect to it was more potent, and it would have more harms towards the children that we were talking about today.

So I think, as we start off this debate, the negative has come to us with a-- has based their case of a very flawed characterisation of what social media was like today. And if I can prove 3 things, that one, we get a benefit from protecting these children from harmful content, 2, we reduce how addicted kids are compared to the negative and 3, the negative has no benefits in the harmful status quo. I think we're able to prove how we're ahead at the end of my speech.

So 3 things in my speech today. Firstly, some rebuttal, secondly, some substantive talking about how societal attitudes towards social media will change and increases the-- decreases the exposure of cyberbullying. And lastly, I'll be doing a bit of weighing.

So starting with the rebuttal, I think there were 2 cases in this debate today. One, how does this impact the development or interaction of kids on social media, and how does this impact the safety of kids on social media?

So starting with the first case, that, how does this impact development and how kids interact with social media? So the negative team came up with a point about how it socially isolates kids because it restricts their knowledge. They don't have contact with their family. They need it for education and that we lack technological progression.

However, there are a few reasons why I thought this was a flawed argument in general. I think firstly, when it comes to restricting knowledge, we thought there were 2 reasons why this wasn't wrong. Firstly, we thought that knowledge generally from social media was not right or very reliable. And 2, we would rather these children learn this knowledge from school or more reliable sources than social media. So we think that restricting access for social-- restricting social media access for kids would not reduce their knowledge, but it would therefore remove the unreliable sources of knowledge that they trust from their lives.

We also think that there is no reduction in the socialisation that they get with their family and friends because one, we think that parents were able to deal with connections with families. We thought that they were able to talk to their family through their parents. And also, these children still have iMessages and things like that to be able to talk to their family members. We thought that this wasn't really a harm that the negative team could claim.

They also came up and talked to us about how they needed social connections and social media would be good for these children to have. However, we wanted to question, what social connections would these kids from 13 to 16 need?

We thought it would be more valuable that they had social connections in real life with the kids in their school instead of social connections with people that could get them jobs in the future because that's not what 13-year-olds are looking for at that age. We thought that these kids were more likely going to just be scrolling on social media and looking at brainrot stuff.

So we came up and told you that it instils toxic and harmful ideas, that kids have a lack of socialisation and that they would have an addiction to these social media apps. The negative team responded saying that there were illegal street drugs, and that there was still addiction. And that there would be a rise in other forms of addicting needs.

However, we thought this was wrong for a few reasons. Firstly, we thought it wasn't right to compare social media to illegal street drugs because, obviously, social media is a lot easier to access on their side of the world. So therefore, the harms of addiction on their side were extremely large, where we proved that, on our world, these older kids were better able to manage their time.

And I think secondly, even though there was a rise in other forms of addicting things, we didn't think that it was as big of an impact or as harmful of an impact as social media. And until the negative team could give us an example of what this would really look like, we thought that social media was the biggest issue right now that we needed to fix.

So at the end of this case, I think we've proved why children have a more positive interaction with social media on our side of the debate, and that the negative team hasn't really proved valid reasons why these 13- to 16-year-olds would still need to interact with social media on the level that they are interacting with now.

So moving on to the second case, which is a bit smaller, the impact on safety of kids. So the negative team came up with a counter model saying that they would have restrictions instead. However, we thought there were 3 reasons why this was wrong.

Firstly, we thought that it doesn't really claim the benefits, because a softer measure would allow loopholes to like-- would allow kids to find loopholes easier. And we also thought that it still maintained the harms that we provided, such as kids would still be addicted. And because of these loopholes, they would still be able to find their way into more toxic content and harmful ideas.

So we thought that the negative team, by proposing this counter model, couldn't really claim any of the benefits that they put forward in their side of the debate, so we weren't really sure what this counter model got us or them in the debate today. They also came up and told us that parents pass on controversial ideas. However, we thought that there were 2 reasons why this was wrong. One, kids still have schools. I think we're kind of thinking of kids very much so as they're in their own bubble. They're only with their parents and social media, but they still have real-life interactions that we wanted to maintain on our side of the world.

And secondly, we thought that social media would perpetuate these controversial ideas. So conversely, it was worse in the negative team's world anyway. So I think at the end of this rebuttal, we've proved why our benefits still stand in the debate, whereas the negative team's benefits don't really stand.

So moving on to my first substantive that will prove how societal attitudes towards social media would change. We thought that it would change the perception that 13-year-olds should-- right now, we think that the perception is that 13-year-olds should be on social media, and that we wanted to change that.

I think there were 3 mechanisms under this. Firstly, how would we achieve this change? I think there are 3 reasons. One, we think that it changes the age that people consider is OK for social media. So for example, right now, people consider 13 as an OK age, since that's normalised. And therefore the use of social media in 13- to 16-year-olds is very prominent-- sorry.

Secondly, we thought that the large news of this change will make people aware of the dangers and the harms of social media for 13- to 16-year-old kids, and that this extra awareness that we needed in a time where we're starting to forget the harms of social media was extremely important to changing societal attitudes. And lastly, I think government-regulated things, for example, our model, are often taken more seriously, and it often can change perspectives.

Onto the second mechanism, why is this important. We think right now there is a very toxic idea that it's OK for impressionable kids to be online and to access and interact with this media. However, we thought a change in social attitude would lead to 2 things. One, it reduces how prominent social media is in the communities of young children, and 2, it highlights the harms of social media for kids, like I said before.

And lastly, why is this a unique benefit that we have in our world. We thought 2 things. One, we thought the negative team was unable to claim such benefits because they perpetuate a culture that makes social media more harmful, more used in kids, and more normalised in Year 7 to Year 10, of 13 to 16. And 2, on our world, we had to change the attitude, which reduced how prominent it was and therefore promoted what my first speaker said of having in real-life social interactions.

So onto the final piece of substantive, how this decreases the exposure of cyberbullying for kids. We've got 2 mechanisms under this. One, why is cyber bullying uniquely harmful on social media, we thought 3 reasons. One, we thought people couldn't be tracked. There were no repercussions, and therefore they were more ruthless because they can just hide behind a username. So we thought that these people were likely to go all in and really push their opinions and bully these people.

Secondly, we thought it was more harmful because there were beauty standards. And it was particularly harmful in social media because so many people have so many opinions that they can impose upon you. For example, if some kid posts a video of them dancing for their friends, we thought social media was really-- would get them-- sorry-- we thought that them posting that on social media and interacting with the people on social media would lead them to getting cyberbullied really badly if that was the case.

And lastly, I think kids would feel affected by it more because they were unable to deal with emotions and that they were younger, and therefore it affected them more, as they were unable to really regulate what they thought of themselves versus what social media thought.

And lastly, how do we improve this? I think we protect these kids from posting this content and getting bullied, and we wait until they can get to an older age where they can better regulate, report and deal with cyber bullying, which is something that the negative team is allowing on their world, where they're allowing 13-year-old kids to be able to post stuff and not doing much about stopping them from being cyberbullied.

So I think at the end of this speech, we proved why we've given you a lot of unique benefits on our side and why the negative team's benefits don't really stand, and they still have a lot of harms that they need to clean up on their side. And therefore, I am very proud to affirm. Thank you.

[applause]

YASHITA MOHAN: All right. So today in my speech, I'll be examining 3 prospects of the status quo that positively impacts our stakeholder. One, that children under 16 will be surrounded by positive echo chambers on social media that allows for marginalised members of society to reach a better circumstance, especially looking at the world in the last 20 years.

Then, I will highlight how these echo chambers increase awareness and provide opportunities for those in mentally, socially and sexually abusive situations to exit these situations, examining the positive advice for young women, children and socially disadvantaged members to find solutions. Finally, I will prove that children under 16 have the maturity and responsibility to live a socially safe online life, but firstly, I'd like to examine the flaws in the opposition's case.

Earlier on, the affirmative team mentioned that, without the social media ban, toxic standards will pollute children's minds. But they fail to realise that these standards are already prevalent in society, even in the 1980s. Rather than banning social media, they should embrace body positive movements and figure out the root cause of the problem.

They also said that companies are big-- sorry. Whilst we agree that teenagers might be going through a hard time where they impulsively do things, but we believe that taking a stupid photo of you and your friends as ducks would rather lead to laughs and spreading of connection. Not everything has to be perceived negatively on social media just because it is online.

They also said that the model would reduce addiction to social media. But really, it might push children to alternative negative entertainment outlets, which forcibly takes away their sense of autonomy. And children will surely find a way to access social media anyway. So banning doesn't really do much anyway, but rather creates a sense of having their right taken away forcibly.

The affirmative team also stated that their model would reduce unreliable knowledge online. Whilst we agree with the affirmative's argument, we must see that social media is the first and often most relevant source of information where people tend to get a widespread, diverse news from. And whether it's unreliable or not, the affirmative should focus on pushing reliable content rather than outright cutting it off, which can still be an information source for many people.

The affirmative team also wants to change the normalised age perception in society but fail to realise why it's normalised currently. They believe that 13-year-olds are too immature, not smart enough to be online, but we believe that these ages are normalised because digital communities have accepted these diversifying opinions of kids. We have to understand that, on our apps like Reddit and Tumblr, the opinions and the ideas that younger kids bring to the table allow us to diversify the society's opinion on these matters.

They also said that their ban would eradicate bullying, but banning social media will not eradicate bullying. In fact, it will worsen it. If we ban children under 16 from social media, it will not target the root of neither bullying or cyberbullying. Bullies will always find a way to spread their harm through other platforms, and it doesn't just have to be online.

Now, on to my speech. Now, first defining-- positive echo chambers online essentially describe the idea that algorithms tend to show you the content you consume and creates your own autonomous judgement. This is amplified as you're surrounded by the views and beliefs, as well as the advice that aligns with one's pre-existing ideas.

Playing into this idea of confirmed bias where it confirms the person's initial judgement. Whilst we acknowledge that there can be negative content online, the opposition's perspective is far too cynical. Positive echo chambers where kids are surrounded by guidance, advice and help allows them to grow and develop their own sense of autonomy and exit unsafe situations.

Children online are exposed to both bad and good content. As proposed in our counter model, if social media companies push positive content for these demographics, we believe it will have 3 positive impacts. Firstly, it will impact their mental health, positively impact their mental health.

As a constant echo of advice, good content and a platform for help, we believe it will positively affect 4 stakeholders. Firstly, those in abusive or having been subject to sexually abusive situations which they might have faced. And online-- sorry-- social media can provide that online safety network, especially if they are unsafe or embarrassed to tell their close ones or friends or counsellors for the fear of being judged.

Where does this fear of being judged come from? Often families, counsellors and friends have differing views on these matters, depending on their generational differences, societal expectations and cultural values. However, with the mask of online anonymity, they can go online to ask for advice regarding these situations.

In places like Reddit and Quora, where there are many streams of communities surrounding such conversation, children can seek out help and advice from those who can actually relate. And because it is online and a specific positive echo chamber, social media is able to help these members find a way to heal, overcome their current situation, reach out for help and come to terms with their circumstance so they can finally tell those who are closest to them, expanding their sense of safety and support, both online and offline.

Next, it allows children, and especially teenagers who are developing their own sense of identity to reach out on these digitalised platforms regarding views on mental illness and LGBTQIA+. Parents and friends can have even negative and self-esteem-degrading views on these marginalised issues. And kids can often tell. Whether it's a dad's sidelong comment on being gay or the circular chamber of those with mental illnesses being inferior and weak, kids can tell. And they need to be able to reach out for help and create a support network.

But what do you do when support just can't be found when you most need it? When it's not in your friends or your family or your relatives or your teachers, where do you go? The opposition's model limits the scope of opportunities for these members to access positive beliefs and views and limits them from gaining their own sense of identity, essentially hindering their growth.

How? Well, if students are able to be welcomed and relate to diverse community online, they're exposed to a wide range of perspectives and advice, which can positively shape their mind and translate over into real life. With a sense of being in a group, allows them to take on a positive outlook on these views and maybe even help classmates and friends, creating bonds and foundational ideas which will establish the base of their identity even as an adult, such as in COVID.

When everyone and students, especially, were physically disconnected from friends and loved ones, how did we cope? Children learnt and grew through social media, promoting social cultures and giving them a safe outward space to vent their troubles, allowing for the sense of unity in a rather disconnected and isolated time.

Finally, whilst we acknowledge social media has exacerbated children's perception of self and insecurity, however, even if that is true, social media is a huge player in children's understanding of and respecting of body types, body image, as well as finding a sense of community regarding these issues and problems like eating disorder.

For example, a child's favourite influencer who promotes healthy, balanced eating can be more efficient at changing their perspectives on the way they view food compared to their parents, whom they might seem as someone who is forcibly enforcing these rules onto them.

And it is also a game changer for other parents who may be dealing with picky eaters, or children who are going through similar circumstances. And they look for guidance through social media under relatable content, and they can help lead both themselves and their family and their children's lives a positive life.

These types of issues and topics can thrive on a platform where children can also access positive content regarding their body, essentially mitigating the issue that was brought on by the opposition's team. Because, whilst negative content might exist, if they focus on pushing this positive content towards this target demographic, then these positive echo chambers will be created, allowing kids to both grow in their-- both mitigate their insecurities and have positive body image issues.

Finally, I'd like to prove that children are already mature and responsible enough to handle social media. Children walk to and from school. They take the bus. They go all by themselves. Children are employed legally by the age of 14 and are eligible for part-time jobs and are able to make decisions to live positive and safe offline lives.

But how would this translate onto their online lives? We need to give children credit. That they are capable to make these decisions because they've already proven that they're able to live positive, safe lives in the real world. And thus, if we continue to reaffirm these positive beliefs into their social media lives, then they will be positively influenced.

And under our counter model, with parental guidance, it can continue to live a positive online life, monitoring the content and the type of videos they might watch. Thus, our counter model allows for these members of society to be a part of community and reach out for the help they deserve, something that the opposition team's model does not, because they deserve to feel safe. They deserve to feel happy. We do. Proud to affirm.

[applause]

NINA ZHANG: The negative team has completely mischaracterised the social media as a positive source of advice, providing connection and wholesome content, which is completely-- which is pretty wrong. And even if it is true, our second speaker says that connection and advice, which is harmful for the connection-- is more beneficial.

So the opposition is defending a status quo where young children are subjected to the toxicity of social media with no clue on how to comprehend it. These are kids just starting out high school and who have not properly learned PDHPE lessons-- body positivity, bullying, sex ed-- and are simply not responsible enough to be on a platform with older kids and adults.

So in this debate, I have 3 questions. Firstly, what each world looks like. And note that at this point in this debate, I believe that this is the only way that this team can win, by characterising a world where their model, by filtering out content, is actually more effective than banning, which I do not think is the case, and my 2 themes, which are how this impacts safety and how this impacts the development of children.

OK, so firstly, on what this world looks like, the negative team under this area today has attempted to mitigate the benefits of our world by characterising our model as ineffective, saying how children are going to use-- children are going to find loopholes either way and how we can't stop them. And how they are going to-- they would rather prefer filtering out information and filtering out all the negative stuff for those young children.

They have said that what their world looks like is restrictions, children being able to find loopholes in our world. And they would rather prefer a softer approach with filtering and restriction, which fosters healthy social media instead of harmful social media, and they would rather reduce their negative content.

However, I would just like to ask, how likely is this actually going to be-- how would this actually work? There's so much stuff trying to be filtered right now. Obviously, social media, we're not trying to promote all that gory stuff, bloody stuff, people doing bad stuff on social media.

Companies right now are obviously trying to filter this stuff, but still, when you're scrolling on social media, when you're scrolling on TikTok, those harmful stuff still come across. You can't say that we're going to filter this, and this is going to work, that this is going to be better than banning. When we actually ban social media, those kids who are subjected to that-- the stuff that pass the filters, they're going to be protected.

And the opposition has failed to prove how this is likely to work and why this is likely to work, and why companies are actually going to be likely to enforce this filter because companies make money from those videos. Companies make money from proving those videos. Companies aren't going to want-- they have said that the government are going to be urged, like strongly pushing the idea of filtering those media things, but why would those companies actually be likely to filter that?

The opposition hasn't proven that. And we actually don't think it is very likely that they are going to filter those stuff because they obviously make money from those videos. They get money from those hate speech and people commenting and people discussing in the comments. People saying, oh, you're wrong. And constantly, this back and forth forum online, that's really, really unhealthy and promotes these propaganda that we don't want.

And even in the opposition's best-case scenario, when, yeah, sure, the filters are enforced, we still think that there are going to be some videos that pass these filters, and that we would rather that most kids be protected from everything rather than all kids being exposed to some of that social media by some mere regulation that might not even be effective.

So what our world actually looks like is that children use IDs to verify their age with their Medicare cards or driver's licence, and multiple accounts are linked to one single card. For example, if a parent uses their ID-- this is all stated in my first speaker, by the way, in the model-- if a parent uses their driver's licence to register their Instagram account, and a kid takes that driver's licence and registers their own account underneath that, that account will be still linked to that driver's licence. And that parent will get an email saying, oh, hey, it looks like someone else has tried to log on to your ID. The parent will be notified, and the parent, obviously aware of this ban, will probably disincentivise the kid from using social media.

They've also said that our side is logistically unrealistic. How is their side any less unrealistic? Filters hardly work. I've already proved that it's super unlikely that they will work. Companies have no incentive to respond to the government strongly urging to filter out problematic content. They obviously won't listen to government.

However, in our world, an outright ban is unavoidable for children under the age of 13. Sure, we concede that maybe some kids will be able to find the loophole. Maybe the kids, their parents will let them use the parent's driver's licence. However, we still think that this is more beneficial because we are protecting most kids from this harmful content, whereas the opposition is exposing all kids to some of that harmful content through this regulation that isn't going to work.

Problematic content is so common and is so often posted that it is impossible to filter it all out. And the opposition has also said that in our world, there is going to be an increased desire to actually go on social media because of this ban. People thrive on abstinence or something. However, societal attitudes will shift in the long term.

Right now, we only think that these kids want to go on social media because 13 is kind of that baseline. When you're 13, you're expected to go on Instagram, to go on TikTok. However, we think that with this ban, the age limit will eventually go up. People are going to start recognising 16 as that baseline, and people under the age of 16 will not be encouraged to go on social media. That kind of stigma will be destroyed and our societal attitudes will shift in the long term. So people will actually won't really be-- their desire to go on social media won't really increase.

So now on to my first theme, how this actually impacts the safety of children. So we have come up and told you that social media is toxic. It is not suitable for children under 16. And we have explained why this is so as it subjects children to beauty standards and enforces them to negative ideas.

And young girls are growing up hating their own bodies. They are reliant on external validation, posting their face, doing TikTok dances, dressing in skimpy clothes just to get strangers to say, oh, you look so beautiful, you look so beautiful, just to have random haters say, oh, you're so fat and stuff like that, which is really bad for their mental health.

Social media is not made for children, and it is an unrealistic view of the world. They have tried to say in response that 13-year-olds are mature enough to deal with all that toxicity. However, we don't believe that is the case. They're not. They haven't been to those PDHPE classes. They haven't learned many of those necessary things in class to help them deal with that stuff. They're still growing. They're still developing. They're really subject to peer pressure.

They've also tried to respond to our points by saying how social media is actually an extension of reality and advertisements are more harmful. However, we do agree that, yes, advertisements do promote these same unhealthy standards. Sometimes they do have models that are super skinny, that are pretty unrealistic. However, they don't have as much of-- they're not as ubiquitous. Social media is more prevalent. It's more prominent. You scroll for hours and hours, and those stuff comes up so much more often than seeing maybe an advertisement or a poster out in broad daylight.

The opposition has said that there will be a rise in other harmful forms of media, such as movies and toxic people. And we believe that social media is actually uniquely worse than those movies or people because, for example, with toxic people such as racists and misogynists, they can be judged and reinformed. There's accountability to those people.

However, social media is addictive. There's a constant stream of toxic views that are much worse than toxic people and movies. And because you're addicted to it, you're going to be scrolling so much for so long, trying to get that positive, trying to find those interesting TikToks to watch. But you're actually just going to be getting all those bad stuff.

They've also said that it provides digital communities. Yes, we do agree that, yes, it does provide digital communities. However, what we are saying is that it still has hate speech, and it still has people being racist, and it still has people being homophobic. So they are kind of like equal negatives. It both does have positives and does have negatives, which the opposition has conceded.

However we think that the negatives weigh even heavier. Sure, you're going to get this one body positivity video and, sure, you're going to get that information. But there's going to be so much negativity, and that impacts you so much greater than the positivity. That negative self body-shaming you, you're going to take it so much more to heart than someone saying, oh, you're beautiful. Love yourself the way you are.

And the opposition has also said that this promotes awareness, promotes children's curiosity. However, we believe that social media is unreliable, and we would so much rather that susceptible children be educated by teachers and reliable media outlets rather than social media, where anything can be said, where any false information, all of that can be said.

[4 bell rings]

It's unbiased. For those reasons, I am proud to affirm. Thank you.

[applause]

ISHANI SRI GANESHWARAN: In this debate, there were 3 main points in our debate today, including why children age 12 to 16 use social media, what the status quo is like and what the world would be like with their model.

So why do children between the ages of 12 to 16 wish to use social media? Our first speaker stated the colossal amounts of benefits of social media on children, including creating their own digital communities, especially those who are already in minority groups, such as those who are in culture groups or those from an LGBTQ community. They are able to create and find their own communities, cultivating their culture and learning about their own different communities, and learning about themselves from people who are much alike to them, which they can only find in a digital world.

Our first speaker also prefaced how those living in rural areas, who are already isolated from society, find most of their friendships online, which is extremely important from the ages of 12 to 16, as these are the ages where we foster our relationships, where we learn skills, how to socialise and communicate with other people. And instead of learning from these ages, what are we going to do when we get older and we don't learn these vital skills in life?

This includes communicating with other relations, for example, friends, or relatives who are overseas, who you cannot communicate face to face. How are you going to communicate to them and share your life experiences with them without social media?

Our first speaker also stated how social media is a base of many children's entertainment, including listening to their favourite songs on Spotify or watching funny YouTube videos, or playing games online with friends on Roblox. By stripping this away from people from our generation who are already excessively exposed to social media, we are taking a large part of their lives away.

Our second speaker also discussed how those struggling with mental health can find refuge in social media. A large example is seen when we were all struggling with COVID. We used social media to find ourselves an outlet of entertainment or being able to communicate with our friends when we could not see them face to face, being able to play games with them and talk to them. If we go through another virus such as COVID, what do you expect this certain age group of 13- to 16-year-olds to do without social media, without that help for their mental health?

The affirmative team only focuses on the negative aspects of social media and completely disregards all the positive aspects. By taking away social media, they fail to realise that this will heavily impact those from the age bracket of 13 to 16, impacting their mental health, impacting how they are going to find entertainment. And they completely think that social media is full of negative aspects and keep on forgetting how there are so many positive aspects which can help this age group more than making them in a worse situation, which they think social media will do to them.

The second topic of this debate is our status quo. Our first speaker also explained that being exposed to social media, we are allowing the younger generation to adapt to the development of technology, which is incredibly there in our society here today. It will allow them to foster the ability to learn about AI and become knowledgeable and see how AI can be harmful and beneficial.

Our first speaker also stated how a benefit of social media for children is increasing their awareness about global news movements, charities, and sharing and learning a new perspective. For example, she spoke on about Greta Thunberg, who raised the voice for our generation to speak up about climate change. And she used social media to promote her beliefs. And that was her base. Without that, she would not have been able to share her perspectives about climate change to those of the younger generation, and a movement for the younger generation about climate change would not have been made.

Our second speaker states that children are already capable of living a mature life. For example, children are already mature enough to walk to school by themselves, which shows that they are able to be physically safe. As well as this-- many children are also being employed, which shows they know how to be financially safe and take care of themselves.

So, if we know that they can be financially and physically safe, why are we saying that they cannot be safe online on social media? That is not a fair assumption for us to make, that those 3 years of 13, 14, 15 and 16 are not able to make safe choices on social media. And that is not our assumption to make when we know that they can be safe in other aspects of life.

Our second speaker also dives deeper into how social media allows citizens to share their experiences online, fostering a virtual community or a virtual safe haven for those who are dealing with abuse, as well as those from different ethnical communities, allowing children to learn how to stay safe in the real world by learning from other people's experiences.

The first speaker on the affirmative team states that any children of any age can easily get into social media. However, she is saying this knowing that many children can still find loopholes to their proposed model that the affirmative team is implementing. As people can always pretend or fake their age, people can get fake IDs to this day to get alcohol or get drugs.

Why can't we say that they can get fake IDs to go onto social media? Why can't we say that they can get their siblings to show themselves and go onto social media? Social media doesn't know exactly what we look like. So how are you planning on implementing this? Where are you getting the money to implement this?

The first affirmative states that there are explicit and threatening content on social media, which can be inappropriate from the ages of 13 to 16, who are younger. However, with the current status quo, the government is already implementing different restrictions which are aiming to filter the information that is shown to those from the ages of 13 to 16, which is already taking away this threatening and harmful conflict content that is inappropriate for their said age.

So if we are already implementing this in the status quo, why do we need to take a harmful approach of banning social media completely from this age demographic? They also said that children age 13 to 16 are too young, and negative impacts will affect them more than other age groups. However, there is no concrete reasoning why children are too immature to use social media. And they fail to recognise that by cutting off those from younger generations, they aren't allowing them to grow and adapt to a society that has a diverse and digital technology.

The first affirmative also states how social media creates unhealthy insecurities for children about body image. Yes, this is a factor. But they fail to realise how social media is a space that can also promote positive aspects of body image, such as from influencers like Spencer Barbosa. With the restrictions from the status quo that are already starting to be implemented, we will be able to make sure that children just see the positive aspects.

They also say that filters won't work, but however, the restrictions that are being implemented completely turn off the app. And what the restrictions are doing are stopping the problem at the root cause by not allowing this content to be viewed by people from this age demographic. So by stopping it at the root cause, this is actually better than completely banning it from them.

In our third point, we stated that we were talking about the world with their model. Our first speaker explained that the downside of implementing the affirmative team's model is it will be extremely difficult as children will always be able to find loopholes to bypass their model, making it completely redundant. We rather people be restricted than be able to find loopholes and making it able for nothing to restrict these children from being able to use the app.

We also don't want to completely shove them into the deep end of social media when they do turn the age of 16. We can see that by using a soft approach of using restrictions, we are creating a small, slow, gradual incline for those age 13 to 16 to use social media, by being restricted for 3 years of using social media and then having full access. Isn't this a better approach than suddenly chucking them into a deep end, where they have no understanding of how to deal with social media?

The first affirmative team also stated that by using their model, they believe children will have more time to foster face-to-face relationships with people. However, we can see that we can always foster face-to-face relationships with people at school and so on, and they completely mitigate the fact that those from rural areas don't have that ability to foster face-to-face relationships such as other people, and digital and online friendships are the only friendships that they can possibly make.

In conclusion, the affirmative team fails to see-- overall, the affirmative team fails to realise that social media is not just an evil creation and has a myriad of benefits. We do agree that there can be sides to social media that are negative, as they pointed out.

[4 bell rings]

But with the status quo, by using restrictions, we can make sure that children will not be caught out by using this. And by using restrictions, we can make sure that it's a gradual incline to what the deep end of social media can be. Thus, we believe the opposition's model is more harmful than the status quo, as it is limiting people's sense of safety, security for help, awareness, community, communication, and so on. But what we are really trying to get here is that everyone deserves to feel safe, heard and supported.

[4 bell rings]

We believe our enhanced status quo will be just the thing, because they deserve to feel happy.

[4 bell rings]

We deserve to feel happy. So, so proud to negate.

[applause]

RIANNA POOLMAN: A member of the adjudication panel, Jeremiah Edagbami, will now deliver the adjudication and announce the result of this debate.

[applause]

JEREMIAH EDAGBAMI: Before beginning this adjudication, I want to acknowledge both teams on tackling such a complex and timely issue. It really felt like a teenager trying to explain TikTok to their grandparents. And I really hope the federal parliament watches this debate, because both sides had some very, very good arguments, something that Parliament needs some help with.

[laughter]

We've heard a lot of good arguments about mental health, digital literacy and social development, but ultimately this debate could have been improved in 2 specific ways.

The first is through understanding debate is actually a public speaking activity. It's not simply public reading. That route requires us to speak slowly and utilise eye contact and rhetorical techniques to engage our audience as best as we can.

But secondly, beyond that, analysis-wise, this debate could have utilised a concept called weighing, which is where we take 2 points and we accept that those points that are competing are both proven to sufficiency and are both correct, and we explain why one is more important than the other. That means that even if the opposition proves their point successfully, that point doesn't win the debate because it is outweighed by another point.

So utilising a little bit more public speaking techniques and also weighing could have improved the debate. But nonetheless, it was very, very good. We were all impressed, and I would like for everyone here to give our teams a round of applause.

[applause]

And now for the juicy part. The first thing I'm going to unpack are the logistical concerns that were raised by both teams in the debate.

Now, we think that logistical concerns can be important to most debates, but it wasn't really important today. Because in debates, we have to assume that both teams have the money and also the parliamentary or legislative power to implement their model or counter model. Which means that if affirmative gives us an explanation of how they'll use ID and how they will require specific types of verification, that stands.

But additionally, the same way the negative team says that they will have some restrictions, that also stands, even if companies don't want to restrict them. So simply saying people won't do your model very well or your counter model very well was not satisfactory in the debate from both teams.

But let's move to a more important issue then, which is on the issue of global awareness and understanding things from a point of view of facts and opinions and also social issues. Now, this issue is what we call a wash in the debate, or deadlocked. And what I mean by that is that no team was able to win this issue because both teams were just so good, or maybe they were just so bad. Up to you.

While social media is filled with misinformation, as affirmative points out, there are also very globally relevant pieces of content that children access to understand the world. For example, information about the Gaza Strip and other likewise pieces of content. Which means that we think that children are going to be consuming a lot of poison, but they will also be consuming a lot of panacea or medicine, something that's good. So ultimately, it could be good, but it could be bad. It's not clear which one it is and which one it's more likely to be. So on that issue, we don't think people are going to have worse or better awareness from this model.

Moving on to the second issue about harmful content. This includes things like violence and hate speech and materialism and body expectations. And the affirmative team quite clearly explains people post harmful stuff and get away with it because it's acceptable-- for example, putting their headphones around their skinny waists. Also, it might be illegal to do some things, but they get away with it-- for example, cyberbullying-- which means that the affirmative explains that bad content exists.

Negative mitigates this by simply saying, well, there's a lot of bad content in the world generally, and also you can get bad content through TV and other parts of life. This is good rebuttal, but it doesn't completely take down the point. Because affirmative's main point is that there are lots of sources, but social media is a very addictive source and it's one type of source. So, yes, there may be multiple different avenues that someone could be affected negatively, and closing one of those avenues is still a benefit.

But we don't think affirmative is able to prove the world gets so much better, and harmful content ceases to exist. Our kids are still harmed under affirmative's world, but maybe they're harmed just a little bit less. So on the issue of harmful content, affirmative only takes a very slim win in the debate, but still a win nonetheless.

Moving on to communities and social interactions, this is where the negative has 2 strong claims. The first is that social media leads to good communication between family and friends, which I think the affirmative team quite successfully deletes by simply explaining you can text people or touch grass.

But additionally negative provides the argument that social media provides communities for marginalised people, such as rural people, queer people, and those who are sexually abused and children of colour. This is a very powerful argument, and we don't think the affirmative team successfully defeats it. Because maybe it's true you can go outside and touch grass and meet other people, but sometimes your local community can be judgmental and unreliable providers of information. So it's good to go online to find a space that is inclusive and there for you.

So what do we have at the end of this? We think the negative team is able to take the win on communities and social interactions. That leaves us with 2 substantial benefits from both sides. We have to decide which one is more important.

And this is where the feedback about weighing is so critical. We need to decide, noting that both ideas are still good arguments, which one is more important. And because the teams don't do this, the adjudication panel had to do it.

How did we decide which benefit was more important? Well, per affirmative's argument, they explained that most kids are affected by this harmful content, but negative says there are some people who are marginalised or from minority groups who are affected. This isn't all kids and all students. So clearly one benefit affects more people than another. Negative will benefit people who are marginalised, but those marginalised children will still face harmful content.

And additionally, as affirmative explains, there are lots of other kids who will be experiencing harmful content. So on the basis of size, affirmative benefits a larger social group, in terms of young people, from the ages of maybe 5 to 16, whereas the negative only benefits a small group of children.

So on that basis, deciding which benefit is more important, we think both teams do a super good job proving their argument. However, affirmative seems to be weightier and far more numerous in the number of people it affects. So for that reason, affirmative has won the debate.

[applause]

RIANNA POOLMAN: A team member from James Ruse High School will now congratulate the winners. I mean, sorry-- from Hornsby Girls High. My bad.

[applause]

AMBER MCLEAN: From the Hornsby Girls team, we'd like to congratulate James Ruse on their amazing win. It was a super tough debate. And hopefully we get to see you this time next year.

[applause]

RIANNA POOLMAN: A member of the winning team will now respond.

SAANVI KASHYAP: On behalf of the James Ruse team, we'd like to thank you guys for such an amazing and a very tough debate. I think, as put forward by our adjudicators, the quality of this debate was very high in general, and we learnt so much from it truly. So we wish you the best of luck in your future debates, and we'll see you soon, hopefully.

[applause]