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JAMES SMITH: Good morning, everyone, and I welcome you to this online national final of the Plain English Speaking Award for 2023. I would also like to acknowledge the Cammeraygal people who are the traditional owners of the land on which I'm speaking to you. I pay respect to Elders, both past and present, of the Eora nation and extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people present.

My name is James, and I will be your chairperson and interviewer for this, the 45th national final of the Plain English Speaking Award. This competition began in Victoria in 1977. And the following year, it spread nationwide. It's generously supported by the Australia-Britain Society, the English Speaking Union, and this year for the third time by Consensus Education.

I'd also like to introduce you to our adjudicators for today's final who are Charlee Jane, Zuva Goverwa and Ally Pitt. Just a couple of notes on our judges. Charlee had a successful school career as a public speaker and a debater and as a student at Crestwood High School. Her team made the state final of the Premier's Debating Challenge in Years 9 and 10 in 2017. Charlee was a state finalist in the Plain English Speaking Award in 2018 and a state and national champion of the Legacy Junior Public Speaking Award in 2015.

Charlee continues to adjudicate for the Arts Unit and has been on the finals many times for the Plain English Speaking Award and the Legacy Junior Public Speaking Award, as well as a number of Premier's Debating Challenge state finals. Charlee has taken a break from her studies currently and is currently employed as an HR talent coordinator at Wipro Shelde.

Ally Pitt was a member of the NSW team that won the National Debating Championships in 2019 and 2020 and was also a finalist for the world championships for high school students in 2019 and university students in 2022. She's been adjudicating for the Arts Unit since 2021 and is currently studying linguistics and international security studies at ANU.

Zuva Goverwa is a passionate young creative with a keen interest in music, writing and public speaking. She was the 2021 Plain English Speaking Award winner in Victoria and is a strong believer of the power of young people to change the world and the necessity of foregrounding their voices in conversations about the future. Zuva is currently a student at the University of Melbourne, undertaking her second year of bachelor in arts in 2023.

OK, a little bit about the competition. There are three parts to this competition. Each of the finalists will deliver a prepared speech on a topic of their choosing. The speaking time is 8 minutes.

Because this is an online final, a clock will be used, which Justine has already explained. The clock will change colour from grey to green at 6 minutes and to orange at 8 minutes to indicate that the speaker's time has expired. If the speaker exceeds the maximum time by more than one minute, the clock will turn red. And the contestants are reminded to wrap up their speech as soon as possible after the 8-minute colour change.

After our finalists have delivered their prepared speeches, they'll be asked a series of interview questions by me based on the speeches that we have just heard and the information sheets that they have provided prior to today's final. The interview will be timed for 3 minutes. That means that our first contestant for today is Wesley Chen, who is in Year 12 and attends Caufield Grammar School in Victoria. The subject of Wesley's speech is 'The importance of linguistic heritage in a world of globalisation'. Please welcome Wesley.

WESLEY CHEN: Five years ago, in a world before COVID, I found myself standing face to face with my grandpa. He was visiting from China on a holiday trip and decided to stop by Melbourne to see us. It had been almost a decade since he last visited. I still remember those first words he said to me at that family reunion. He said, [speaking Chinese]. I stared back at him blankly. We stood there silently. At that moment, I realised that I couldn't understand him.

Since that interaction with my grandpa, I knew I had to do something about it, about the embarrassment I felt, about the frustration of not being able to speak to my own grandpa. I spent 2 years in middle school studying Chinese. And in my spare time, I visited art galleries and museums to read more about my culture. I came to learn that my grandpa was commenting on how much I've grown since the last time he saw me. In reflection, it's a regrettable reality of how quickly first-generation immigrants lose connection with their culture.

Chinese festivals were never a big part of my family's calendar. I would often realise an event on the day it occurred, and celebrations didn't go beyond a trip to the park. As a small child, I loved going on these walks, especially during the windy days of April when I would fly my bright red kite, which I affectionately named Bob. Without even knowing it, I was actually participating in the hallmark tradition of kite flying which Qingming festival is known for.

Mesmerised in my adventures with Bob, I had little idea of the deeper significance of commemorating past ancestors. Much later, I also learned that Qingming festival is not just a cultural holiday, but also marks an extraordinary intellectual achievement. Through observing the sun's position in the sky, the ancient Chinese created 24 solar terms in order to explain seasonal changes in their environment.

Qingming, one of the solar terms, signals the most optimal time for farmers to start ploughing and sowing for spring. When we lose the ability to communicate in a certain language, we lose the chance to learn about the traditional wisdom of that culture, knowledge which has been distilled and refined through countless generations.

Moreover, the impact of language loss extended beyond just my family life. I remember the summer of 2020 when I visited my local community's lantern festival. To my dismay, I felt estranged. Like a tourist disembarking from a plane in a foreign country, I felt welcomed as an outsider. I couldn't speak to the dragon dancers in my heritage language, and I relied on a hybrid of English and Chinese to order my dumplings.

Once again, I found myself embarrassed and isolated. Language is essential to community living and, more importantly, to acquire a sense of belonging. But my personal identity crisis is a small fraction of how our world is gravitating away from tradition, and the value of heritage is slowly diminishing. This movement began during the Age of Discovery in the 15th century. The greatest impact that resulted from this time was the rise of colonialism, which still exists today.

One effect of colonialism was the marginalisation of minority languages and, by extension, their speakers. Those living under Britain's colonial rule were taught to read and write in English. It was a method which claimed to educate but was, in fact, a means of systematically eradicating entire cultures. This phenomenon was experienced by communities across the world, but none so much as those which occupied Australia before the settlers.

Indigenous Australians not only faced physical abuse, but they were also culturally oppressed by having their language rights taken away. English was imposed on them against their free will, and the youth were taught to reject their traditional values for those of Britain's. Fortunately, we've come to understand just how morally incorrect this was, but the damage is yet to be repaired.

As linguistics professor Ghil'ad Zuckermann asserts, 'I believe that the loss of language is more severe than the loss of land'. Since 1991, the percentage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who spoke a native language at home declined from 16.5% to 9.5%. Research has identified this trend as a causal factor of self-loathing and higher rates of suicide. Reviving languages can therefore improve individual mental health and community well-being.

The essence of cultural preservation lies within the ability to sustain language, and practising traditional languages, whether written or spoken, is a fundamental right. In support of this view, the United Nations created the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights in 1996, a document which outlined the freedom to communicate in any language of choosing.

It states, 'Different languages and different ways of speaking are not only a means of communication; they are also the milieu', a person's social environment, 'in which humans grow and cultures are built'. This means that language and culture are intrinsically tied together. Therefore, denying one's language would be equivalent to violating their human rights.

But the road to recovery isn't so simple. As a product of the colonial age, English has become too widespread, so widespread that it has become a means to achieving a successful career. Take Singapore, for example. In 1987, it adopted English as an official language, given its importance for business, diplomacy, and technology. Their schools now use English to teach most subjects, including math, science, and even history.

This decision was made by the government out of the interest for economic gain. But Singapore's language evolution is coming at a tremendous cost. Whilst the nation is increasingly getting better at their English, other traditionally spoken languages are slowly waning. Of the 4 official languages, English is by far the most spoken in Singaporean homes, whilst Malay and Tamil barely combine to make just 1/10 of the population. Like Australia, they too are suffering the loss of cultural heritage.

Roughly 6,500 languages are still being spoken today, but sadly, more and more are on the path to extinction. Clearly, something must change. If we want to keep living in a culturally diverse world, we must protect minority groups. And it begins with their language. For any young person like myself who has lost touch with their heritage, I urge you to reconnect with your culture.

Although I can't say I've fully done so myself, I'm a whole lot closer than I was five years ago. I'm now able to have conversations with my grandpa, and he still comments on how much I've grown.

JAMES SMITH: Wesley, I loved the speech. I was just thinking about it and wondering, you make the link between young people and engaging with the world and learning the languages of their culture and becoming genuinely interested in who they are. How do you think the Australian government can best help our Indigenous young people to do this?

WESLEY CHEN: Well, I think in any case, we shouldn't teach people how to engage with their culture. I think every culture has unique perspectives, and they form different cultures within their community groups. And so I think the best way we can appreciate all cultures, whether it be Indigenous or multicultural, I think it is to recognise exactly that-- that every culture is unique, every culture has different ways of interacting. And I suppose the best way we can facilitate multiculturalism is to encourage that.

JAMES SMITH: Yeah. Great. Fair enough. You mentioned in your speaker profile that you were interested in advocacy and mental health and multiculturalism, which is great, but you also mentioned that you want to facilitate some curriculum changes in secondary schools. Can you give us a bit more on that, please, Wesley?

WESLEY CHEN: Yeah. So last year I was elected into the Victorian student representative council. We're the peak body of advocacy for school-aged students for primary and secondary schools. And essentially what our aim is two ways. One, to make education more inclusive for everyone so that everyone has access to a high-quality education no matter their circumstances.

And secondly, to create learners for life. And that's facilitating learning beyond the curriculum. So the things we're looking at particularly is not the math, sciences. We have full trust in the VCAA to do that, but we are more so concerned about consent education, mental health awareness, learning that creates more actively involved and informed citizens of our country.

JAMES SMITH: Great response. OK. As a bit of a twist, you also said you're working towards a career in the public service. Do you have a favourite politician, Wesley?

WESLEY CHEN: Well, I think Jacinda Ardern is wonderful. I think she sets a high standard for all leaders to aspire to.

JAMES SMITH: OK. Nice, straight back there. And do you have a favourite government policy?

WESLEY CHEN: I do not.

JAMES SMITH: OK, fair enough. Fair enough.

WESLEY CHEN: A lot for us to work on, but there's a lot to celebrate, as well. And I think the greatest thing about Australian democracy is that it's one of the most robust in the world. I think there needs to be more cooperation, as with any democracy. But I think healthy debate is also wonderful, as well.

JAMES SMITH: Fantastic. Would you support lowering the voting age to 16?

WESLEY CHEN: I do. So that is something we looked at in [? Victorian SRC ?] a few years ago. We raised the bill in Victorian Parliament, actually, which was unsuccessful. But I think lowering the age is-- it would inevitably happen. In fact, I spoke with former Premier Steve Bracks of Victoria. And I asked him, actually. I said, what do you think about lowering the age? And he told me, I think it would happen in the future. But there's steps we need to take before that happens.

JAMES SMITH: Thank you so much, Wesley. It was a pleasure to meet you. So our second contestant is Addison Perris, who is in Year 11 at MacKillop Catholic College, representing the Northern Territory. The subject of Addison's speech is 'The romanticism of mental health in the media'. Please welcome Addison.

ADDISON PERRIS: Generation Z is the first generation to grow up with a smartphone, and with it, the first to experience the influence of social media from such a young age. They're also known for their insistent promotion of the importance of their mental health as well as everybody else's. This is my generation. When this mix of media and mental health is shared so freely across the world, it becomes easier for people to feel more comfortable reaching out for help, as well as creating more representation for those who require it. This is a positive.

However, is this unrestricted portrayal of such a complicated and important issue really helping, or is it doing more damage despite our good intentions? There are lots of sides to consider in this argument, but I'd like us to focus on these three concerns. Firstly, is the seriousness of the issue still being understood? Secondly, has self-diagnosing become nothing but a trend? And lastly, are we still offering help to those who require it?

I believe that it's important that we offer the correct representation of mental illness to destigmatize the issue. But what we don't need is teenagers romanticising the idea of having this illness, of making it seem like a thing a person should ever want to have. Did you know that there are over 200 diagnosable forms of mental illness, ranging from personality disorders to trauma-based disorders, and that each condition, regardless of type or cause, has its own set of serious consequences, consequences like self-destructive actions and violent outbursts?

As such, there is no underestimating the seriousness of a mental illness and the effect it can have on a person. So when this topic is thrown around without any hesitation, comments like 'this is my 13th reason', and 'you look so depressed right now', it becomes taken as an attempt at attention seeking or even joking when a person with real-life concerns shows signs of needing help.

We've all heard the saying 'crying wolf', and this is what is happening to our youth. It's almost impossible to tell nowadays who actually requires help and who's just saying it because their friend did. The people who face these challenges deserve to be treated with respect, not as if they're just another trend being passed around on some teenager's For You page.

In a report published by the JAMA Psychiatry Journal, up to 73% of patients suffering from borderline personality disorder attempt suicide at least three times in their lifetime. In a report published by René S. Khan, anywhere from 13% to 55% of patients suffering from schizophrenia attempt once in their life. In an article written by Jack Drescher, up to 70% of dissociative identity disorder patients attempt once in their life. Mental health is serious, and it should be treated with respect and not be a thing that a person should ever want to have.

Self-diagnosing is a [? common ?] occurrence when a person googles whatever symptoms they've been experiencing and then believes whatever response pops into their feed. With mental health being advocated for so strongly on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, it's easy to fall down a For You page filled with 'if you do this, you might have this disorder' videos, and signs you may have such and such illnesses.

The age limit on TikTok in particular is only 13. A 13-year-old is a young and impressionable child who can and will believe anything the media tells them. If a video shows even one thing a person can be doing that can be taken as a sign of ADHD or autism, then they will believe they have it. So with teenagers being exposed to this constant insinuation that they have their own handful of disorders, it's not difficult to understand why they may act as if they did.

If they're so wrapped up in this world of media, they'll believe that it's normal for a person to experience depressive episodes and even anxiety attacks, and they may even wish that they had these, too. How is that OK? Laurel Phillips, an associate clinical director at Camber Kansas City, stated that it's important to destigmatize mental illness, but it's also harmful to rely on social media influencers for information and then taking this as a diagnosis. She explicitly states that mental health in any form of media can be misrepresented.

This self-diagnosing comes from a need to not feel left out in what we believe is a world where it's normal to suffer through illnesses and conditions, labelling ourselves to help fit in with the people we surround ourselves with. How would you feel if the people who really need the help miss out because of the wannabes and the misdiagnosed and the overdiagnosed?

With the rise of social media comes the rise of celebrities, with people being held in the spotlight so excessively it's a wonder we're surprised when they speak openly about their troubles. In 2020, the American singer Camila Cabello shared some of her experiences with anxiety and OCD, or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, saying her illness robbed her of her fun, joy, creativity, and trust, and that OCD is not what the media makes it out to be.

As far as mental illness goes, OCD is one of the most stereotyped disorders in the media, and this can cause casual and flippant response from teens. I find it unlikely to believe that you've never heard someone or even said yourself, 'I need to fix this, I'm so OCD', or something along those lines. The reason Camila's OCD came as such a surprise to us was because she doesn't show the stereotypical symptoms that the world has conditioned us into believing are real.

There is no cut and dry for a disorder like this. And that's what makes these teenagers' obsessions so damaging. If you don't show the correct symptoms, then they won't hesitate to tell you that it's not real or not serious enough to require aid. This can apply to almost all types of mental illness, from eating disorders to schizophrenia. Mental health is as complicated as it is important, and we don't truly understand it. So why are we acting like we do?

Whether we are physically or mentally unwell, we deserve to be treated with respect. We cannot keep functioning in a society that limits our access. We cannot keep living in a society where mental illnesses are glorified and romanticised. Whether it's the lack of recognition in media, the blatant romanticization of a sickness, to even the obsessive stereotyping, it has to stop. If something doesn't stop, people will die. And there's no sugarcoating that. We will be trapped into a society that lifts up those who purely care for the aesthetic and limits the access to those with real struggles.

This mockery of illness must stop to make room for the representation of real people with real problems. We need to prioritise people, not wishes, not ideas, and definitely not a lie. Thank you.

JAMES SMITH: Thanks, Addison. That was a great speech. I'll just give Justine a moment so we get up there. Yep, she's ready to go. OK, first question. You make a really, really interesting point in this speech about people communicating about things like OCD and other conditions in a flippant way. If you're in one of those environments where one of your family members kind of flippantly said, 'Oh, I've got OCD, or this is OCD', how would you best want us to respond to that type of person?

ADDISON PERRIS: Well, that's a difficult situation because people don't want to be that person that openly talks about why it's wrong to say such things. They don't want to be the spokesman for something like this. But I think it's important to remind them that OCD is a disorder, and that it affects people in their everyday life and can make living day-to-day life very challenging, and that maybe it's not something we should joke about or casually throw around.

JAMES SMITH: Yeah, so it becomes one of those off-limit kind of areas, yeah? Yeah, interesting. Another question about the speech. You mentioned that it's obviously dangerous to underestimate the seriousness of mental health. Do you think that shows like '13 Reasons Why', for example, are net positive or kind of detrimental when it comes to promoting the conversation?

ADDISON PERRIS: '13 Reasons Why' I've heard has been viewed as a negative example or representation of mental illness because it is so dramatised and excessively shown. It doesn't romanticise the idea of mental illness, but it doesn't really help with the need to create more resources for people.

JAMES SMITH: Yeah, fair enough. OK, let's change tack for a second. It's great to see Northern Territory back in PESA. How are you feeling about the opportunity to take part in this competition?

ADDISON PERRIS: I'm very glad I get to take part in this opportunity. It's a great experience for me, and I've never done something like this before.

JAMES SMITH: Thank you very much. We'll cut it up and use it for promotion. The next thing is you mentioned that you're interested in pursuing a career in psychology, which is great, considering the speech. Is there any particular specialisation or area that you're thinking about pursuing?

ADDISON PERRIS: I am interested in psychology. It is the one thing I want to do when I leave school. And I am interested in mental health, actually, which is why I'm passionate about this topic in particular. I want to become a psychologist or a psychiatrist for particularly younger people in the world. And yeah, it's just what I'm interested in.

JAMES SMITH: That's great. How did you actually get that on your radar of career choices?

ADDISON PERRIS: I saw a lot of it in media, funny enough. And just the different stories and the different ways that mental health can be explored and all the different possibilities, I found very interesting. And I'd love to learn more about it.

JAMES SMITH: Yeah, you sound like someone that's really passionate about making a difference. OK, thank you so much for your time and your speech, Addison. It was really, really great.

ADDISON PERRIS: Thank you.

JAMES SMITH: So our third contestant is Sophia Marra, who is in Year 12 at Santa Maria College in WA. The subject of Sophia's speech is 'God save the King: the relevancy of the monarchy in contemporary society'. Please welcome Sophia.

SOPHIA MARRA: Do I start whenever? Mia Thermopolis is a 10th-grade private school girl living in San Francisco. On her 15th birthday, she discovers she is, in fact, Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi, the rightful heir to the Genovian throne. Julie Andrews delivers the far-fetched news [? that Mia ?] and her cat, Fat Louie, are destined to a life of service to the crown.

However, Mia must forgo her classic 2000s wardrobe, teenage colloquialisms, and bushy hair in order to become the person she truly is. She is polished and shined to meet the royal standard. Indeed, the British royal family waive their right to privacy, freedom of religion, and in many cases, the right to choose who they marry in order to rule.

The very notion that a single bloodline holds governing authority over a nation and that each of their offspring is destined to rule is a little antiquated. Regardless of what they say, if you prick the king's finger, his blood would run red, not blue. To grossly oversimplify the notion, the only requirements to rule are that you are born first, born royal, and in Genovia, that you marry Chris Pine.

And yet, who can deny that the monarchy's golden veneer elicits a great sense of allure amongst the British public? Even in these changing times, over half of the population still prefers a monarchy to an elected head of state. One website suggests many subscribe to the tautology that countries ought to be democracies because they ought to be democracies.

But I think the notion of what democracy truly means-- freedom of speech-- is often far from the truth. Take America for example. Although technically a functioning democracy, this doesn't prevent the continuous subversion and corruption of justice, inequitable laws which allow citizens to carry guns but deny women bodily autonomy.

In this case, America decides what democracy looks like for its nation-- the illusion of justice and freedom perpetuated to conceal the continuous subversion of human rights. And this has always been the case in the contemporary world. The Greeks may have given complete power, kratos, to the people, demos, but democracy nowadays is bent out of shape.

Take Marx's Communist utopia. Through developing a revolutionary consciousness, the working class overthrow the proletariat and institute a classless society. Then comes Stalin and decides that what Marx actually meant is that the working class are going to be exploited to facilitate industrial development, and all power is consolidated under one person. Clearly, something got lost in translation.

However, I believe the notion of the monarchy has evolved for the better over time. We no longer have monarchs like Henry VIII, changing the entire country's religion just so he could divorce Catherine of Aragon. Nowadays, the monarch holds a more symbolic role in Parliament. And although a bill cannot become an act of Parliament without royal assent, ministers exercise all power in the monarch's name.

Whilst the British monarchy's pomp and circumstance attracts global attention, in countries such as Thailand, the monarchy is often the only thing holding the people back from civil war. The monarch unites citizens under shared unity to a leader rather than to a certain tribal or ethnic collective. As a result, it's very difficult to radicalise the political landscape of nations. The monarch sits above the monotonous backs and forths of politics, the half-truths of the media.

Let's take Australia as another example. We've recently discussed detaching from the coddling embrace of our mother nation and becoming a republic. But like a child without its mother, Australia still has a lot to learn from Britain. If we were to become a republic, our elected head of state would exist only to serve the interests of their party. Couple this with partisan politics, and you have a nation rife with division and injustice. Sounds a lot like America. We'd be a completely new variable in danger of collapsing in on ourselves.

One royal expert, Richard Fitzwilliams, states that in the queen, we had this wonderful, wise canvas on which the British people could project their opinions and perspectives. But in Charles, we have a more flawed image, one that is widely considered to be controversial and out of touch.

Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne at the young age of 25. Yet to experience the ups and downs of life, she grew up under the watchful eye of the British public, and hence was tentative to let her personal life colour her image. She was a monarch first and an individual second. There is no doubt that her duty and dedication to her role, her life's work, endeared even the most hard-hearted anti-royalists to her cause.

Unfortunately, Charles has not been afforded the same grace. Journalistic discourse surrounding Charles's person has always been dictated by talks of adultery, divorce, and leaked private conversations. The British media have chosen to focus on his flaws as an individual rather than his achievements as a royal. An avid supporter of environmentalism and advocate for the arts, Charles's philanthropic views and political opinions have always been overlooked.

Simply put, we're incapable of seeing him as anything other than a flawed old man. But we have to remember that, like his mother once before him, Charles is at the beginning of a journey, the rebirth into a life of a monarch, the chance to voice his opinions on pressing global issues like global warming and climate change. Perhaps we need to give Charles the chance to paint canvas, to show us his vision for the future. It may be greater than we ever imagined.

So when it comes the time to ask yourself, is the monarchy really relevant in contemporary society, in contemporary Australia, I want you to consider the consequences of your answer. Vote no, and you lose your training wheels, the watchful eye of a sovereign nation. You become a new variable, which could just as easily turn into a flourishing utopia as it could a dictator 'democracy'. Vote yes, and you keep your voice, your connection to history and tradition, the watchful eye of the mother nation. Vote yes and live to say once more, God save the King. Thank you.

JAMES SMITH: Excellent work, Sophia. No worries. Justine, are we good to go? Great. All right. Question one. In your speech, you talk a lot about the difference between the individual monarch and the royal persona that they need to uphold. Is it difficult at all to separate that in the age of media that we've got, particularly with the approach to reporting that we've got at the moment?

SOPHIA MARRA: Absolutely. I think that often our perception of the monarch or people within the royal family is so coloured by how the media choose to represent them. And that's part of a commercial advertising enterprise. It's really tough for those people within that institution to retain their sense of duty and faith to the crown when the media chooses to almost stereotype them into a sort of label or a title.

JAMES SMITH: Do we have any other options, though? Is there any other way that you could craft reporting?

SOPHIA MARRA: It's pretty hard because we obviously do have freedom of press, and it's their right to represent people the way they want and run with ideas and make them so hyperbolic and exaggerated. I think knowing that the people within the institution do have the option to leave-- I know a lot of people don't regard Harry and Meghan with the highest degree of regard, mostly due to the media.

But I think that recognising leaving the royal family as a valid option for people that choose to have a personal life and a sense of duty to their family should be regarded with higher praise.

JAMES SMITH: Very nice. So have you read 'Spare'?

SOPHIA MARRA: No, I actually haven't, but a lot of my friends have talked about it.

JAMES SMITH: Yeah. OK. Well, a slightly related question, then. Would you say that to some extent the Harry and Meghan media artefact is part of the issue? Do you think that they kind of sold out the royal family, to some extent?

SOPHIA MARRA: I was totally behind them leaving the royal family. I recognise that as a valid decision. I think that many people who view that as something negative should maybe think twice about the impact it has on individuals, and especially because a lot of people think the monarchy is such an elitist institution-- you're born into it and it's your right. And then why would you leave when you have that opportunity?

The bit I don't agree with, which is what you addressed, is coming back into the media and making a pointed remark about their time within the monarchy. I think if they were really interested in achieving peace, a sense of harmony and family life, they wouldn't have come back and done all this media advertisement because if anyone knows the impact of the media, how they can twist your stories, it's definitely them.

JAMES SMITH: Better to stay mum, hey? OK, very nice. So this is just a quick you question. You mentioned that you like art and reading, which are pretty standard interests for a public speaking person, but you're also keen on robotics, which suggests a little bit of a science bent. Can you tell us a little bit more what happens at the International Youth Physics Tournament?

SOPHIA MARRA: Yes. So that's actually separate from my robotics hobby, but I can tie them together. I had the physics tournament last week. It was a world competition where we had to research a physics phenomenon, present a 12-minute presentation on it. And also, in my research, I did use a robotic apparatus to facilitate my explanation.

I was also lucky enough to reach the national finals for the Rio Tinto RoboCup a couple of years ago with my sister, and that involved constructing and programming robots to move to music within a 2 by 2 metre square.

JAMES SMITH: Awesome.

SOPHIA MARRA: So yeah.

JAMES SMITH: I love that. Thank you, Sophia. That's great in terms of the diversity of interests that you've got. Excellent speech.

All right. So our fourth contestant is Elizabeth Barker, who is in Year 12 and attends Hawker College in the ACT. And the subject of Elizabeth's speech is, 'Is discrimination ever OK?' Please welcome Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH BARKER: So here's the question. Is inequality, particularly inequality on the basis of traits determined at birth, ever acceptable? The society we live in has, for several generations now, been moving in the direction of no, we don't want to discriminate on the basis of race or gender or anything like that.

However, when we stop and think about this, achieving equality at birth is actually a very complicated concept. Consider the arguments of prominent 19th-century egalitarian philosopher John Rawls, a leading proponent of equality in society. He agrees that it is totally unfair to benefit from being born a certain way or in a certain place. He puts it in terms of moral desert. You can't morally deserve what advantages-- wealth or opportunities-- that come from factors which are essentially luck.

So the gender you're born shouldn't limit your career. The country you're born in shouldn't limit your opportunities. And no starting position in society should strand you at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. You can't morally deserve any advantages that come from morally arbitrary factors, luck factors. Difficult to argue with, so let's follow this logic to its natural conclusion.

For a start, Rawls says that we can't justify a feudal monarchy system, anything that works with nobility or purity of blood, because which parents you're born to is random. And so this is a morally arbitrary factor. Similarly, you can't justify an inheritance system where some start with millions more than others simply because of luck.

Thirdly, Rawls says that no one can morally deserve the advantages that come from being born smarter or prettier or stronger than average. Whether you win the genetic lottery is random, so it is morally arbitrary. So, for example, you can't morally deserve a higher than average intelligence or the higher salary that might come with using it.

But wait, you might say, what about effort? It took enormous effort to develop that intelligence into something worth a high salary. Well, John Rawls has an answer to this, as well. The environment in which you are raised is pretty much the determining factor in your personality development. Whether your family encourages generosity or values self-determination or teaches you that to work hard is a virtue.

And what kind of parents you're born to, the environment in which you were raised, that's a random, morally arbitrary factor, too. And so we get the fourth part of Rawls' argument, that you can't morally deserve the wealth, opportunities, et cetera, you get from your ability to work hard, your charisma or friendship-making skills, your self-determination, and yes, your effort. These things are morally arbitrary, a factor of where and how you are born. You don't morally deserve them. Nature or nurture-- both are factors of chance.

And this is what Rawls uses to justify his difference principle, a system of controlled inequality where you can, are even encouraged to, exercise your talents to improve society. But you can't think you morally deserve said talents or the fruits of your labour that come from them. You're not morally entitled to the wealth, fame, opportunities, et cetera that come from what you do with what nature randomly gave you.

However, note that some inequality is allowed under Rawls' system, under the logic that many institutions which help everyone wouldn't be founded if the founders had nothing to gain. We subvert the equality for all principle on the grounds of practicality. And this system is designed to achieve a society as close to utopia as is possible on Earth.

Physically and materially speaking, this might be a utopia, but mentally, emotionally, the idea that you don't deserve your talents, even aspects of your personality, that you don't morally deserve what you earn or what you create, that's horrifying. It's like the worst kind of a horrific dystopia. This can't possibly be the right way of thinking.

But remember, all of this logical regression came from the simple assumption that it's unfair to benefit from being born a certain way or in a certain place. If that simple assumption taken to its natural conclusion leads to a horrific dystopia, the only conclusion can be that it's wrong, and we have to allow some form of advantage based off of birth. We have to allow some form of discrimination.

This would be the part where you call me a terrible person and I get crucified on social media. But please remember, we're just following the logic. And this should come as no surprise to us. After all, you can quite acceptably discriminate on the basis of gender when choosing which doctor you want to see. You can discriminate on the basis of religion and other UN-protected attribute when choosing who you want performing your wedding ceremony.

And you can absolutely discriminate on the basis of race when deciding, say, university admissions. Wait, what was that last one? That last one was different from the previous two. See, in the previous two cases, you were discriminating on the basis of attributes directly relevant to the matter at hand. And I don't think anyone's going to argue that that's OK. You can discriminate between, say, a strong and efficient construction worker and a weaker one when hiring for a job, even if it is a matter of lucky genetics at heart.

But in that third case, you were discriminating on the basis of an attribute not directly relevant to the matter at hand. Skin colour or racial heritage plays no part in academic potential or in suitability for university admissions. It is racism. It is discrimination by any dictionary definition you'd care to find. And according to almost any society and/or anyone you'd care to ask, racism is bad. So affirmative action, because yes, of course, that's what we're talking about, is bad.

But here's the thing. I'm not actually arguing against affirmative action because every single one of the moral deductions we've made above has assumed and/or aimed for an ideal society. And we don't live in an ideal society. People are currently disadvantaged. And to our disappointment, race, or other -isms such as sexism or ageism, still plays a part in that.

Affirmative action can help with that. It's arguable that we may not make great strides in fixing these problems without it. So affirmative action is, ethically speaking, morally speaking, wrong. But that doesn't mean we can't use it anyway, so long as we acknowledge that it is wrong. We can subvert the equality for all principle on the grounds of practicality.

But because affirmative action is morally wrong, wherever a substitute is possible, we have to use that instead, preferably a substitute that addresses the root cause of the problem. Racism of generations past is what gave rise to much of the inequality we see today, propagating down via intergenerational disadvantage. Use affirmative action programmes that target economic disadvantage, first in family, rural areas, and you address the root cause of the problem.

We don't need to bring race into the solution. And by avoiding doing so, you also help other disadvantaged minorities that can't get as much media attention. So, if you take anything away from today's speech, let it be this. We need to make any affirmative action measures discriminating on the basis of protected traits as defined by the UN that are not directly relevant to the matter at hand. These measures must be avoided wherever a substitute is possible and always made temporary.

Where a substitute is possible, we have to avoid the moral wrong because it is discrimination on the basis of birth traits like race or gender and use that instead. And any affirmative action measures that are taken must be temporary. They're usable as a necessary evil to help fix the problems. They have to be going away as things improve, or we'll never get rid of the evils of unjustified discrimination.

JAMES SMITH: Excellent. Thank you, Elizabeth. A really, really interesting speech. I just want to ask this question, which is, you mentioned that most or all affirmative action policies in your mind should be as temporary as possible. Do you think that there's any kind of risks or harms or drawbacks to winding back those policies once they've been put in place?

ELIZABETH BARKER: They have to be gone away. And there's a few reasons for that. The primary one I can think of is these policies encourage dissent. They ferment discord because those who are being discriminated against by these policies feel resentment that they're being discriminated against.

JAMES SMITH: Yeah, fair enough. Do you think there is a good natural ending point to those policies?

ELIZABETH BARKER: I think that we should only use these policies where we think that nothing else is going to solve these problems. So at the moment, we've been trying to fix these problems since the 1950s. So these affirmative action policies are helping. There are arguments out there that show that these things are helping, but we need to get rid of them as soon as possible because they're not good in the long term.

JAMES SMITH: Fair enough. OK, so most of your speech is focused around John Rawls. Were there any other philosophers that you would have liked to include in your speech?

ELIZABETH BARKER: It would have been nice to talk about utilitarianism because much of the argument can be put in utilitarian terms in terms of, we hurt a few people now for the good of reducing racism in the long run. Libertarianism is another aspect that would be interesting to include because much of John Rawls' argument around the difference principle is an interesting contrast to the libertarian principle of we own ourselves.

JAMES SMITH: Very cool. How did you first get interested in the difference principle just in general, or philosophy? Who introduced you to it?

ELIZABETH BARKER: I was bored during the holidays, so I went searching on edX for online courses. I found a course titled Justice, which I highly recommend, and that's how I got interested in all of this.

JAMES SMITH: Fantastic. And were there any particular example of affirmative action that drew you to writing this particular speech?

ELIZABETH BARKER: Well, I suppose the most relevant to me would be university admissions. I'm applying for the ANU next year, and one of ANU's principles which they're proud of is that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders have scholarships and selection factors that help them.

JAMES SMITH: Yeah, interesting. Yeah, and obviously a complex question. So here's a nice little curveball for you. You listed Dungeons and Dragons as one of your interests and hobbies. Do you feel like public speaking has helped enrich your campaign or added characters? Can you give us a little bit of insight to that?

ELIZABETH BARKER: I'm not sure it's been-- I suppose it's been helpful in that it's very good for improvisation. You have to do a lot of improvisation as a DM.

JAMES SMITH: Do you actually DM?

ELIZABETH BARKER: I do. I have a campaign. It's stalled a bit at the moment because of schoolwork, but I do have a campaign.

JAMES SMITH: That sounds fantastic. I look forward to hearing about it at another point in time. Great speech. Thank you so much, Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH BARKER: Thank you.

JAMES SMITH: Our next contestant is Eli Gearing, who is in Year 11 and attends Centenary State High School in Queensland. The subject of Eli's speech is 'One world, one tree, one us'. Please welcome Eli.

ElI GEARING: Change is like a storm. It's a powerful force that can drastically alter things, for better or for worse. On the one hand, it can cause great destruction, leaving a trail of despair in its wake. But on the other, it can bring out beauty like the green glow of rain-soaked trees. And I think in this picture, our society is kind of like one of those beautiful old trees. We're blown around in the wind. We may lose a branch or two, but we're also nourished by the water, allowing us to further grow and develop.

Like an old tree, we've weathered countless storms in our time, with some of the greatest being the evolution of our press and media. With cracks of thunder and downpours of rain, we've seen the evolution from rudimentary conversations to newspapers, and then radio and TV. Even today, traditional news media such as these are still the vessels for media tirades against things such as Queensland youth crime.

These stories, these opinions, they're not presented to young people. They're not the sorts of things you see popping up in Instagram feeds. No. Instead, they're presented through traditional media that publishers know is consumed primarily by older generations. But when I looked at some of these articles, it felt like there was a very obvious omission to all of them. None of them contained any form of statement from a teenager, from someone my age, someone in this demographic they were so deliberately demonising.

Like it or not, we're a pretty significant stakeholder in these discussions. So why do none of us have a voice? Why is no one my age at least being asked for an opinion? And I think you'll find to a large degree, the answer to that comes down to an underlying separation between the generations, the branches on our tree, that cause us to disengage.

With a bolt of lightning striking the centre of our tree, the trunk, the foundation, was split in two. In place of previous geographical segregation, we now found ourselves dividing based on age and ideologies. Instead of the strong foundational bonds that held us together and united older and younger generations, we simply had an empty chasm, trapping the different generations in their own echo chambers.

You see, the uptake of social media went very differently to previous iterations of news mediums. Previously, the new forms of media were used in addition to previous ones. This time, however, while older generations that grew up with traditional media held on to it, younger ones have turned their backs on everything else.

If you ask me, that's a major reason why our generational branches have started growing apart. Not only have we stopped interacting as much, but now we find ourselves reading information that is deliberately crafted to agree with us. Sentiments held more commonly by older generations are presented in traditional forms of media, while news more appealing to younger generations is delivered digitally via social media. And so we've created a system where the very information we rely on to form our views of the world refuses to challenge us, choosing instead to try and align with our pre-existing prejudice.

And we see this play out so tragically with that example of youth crime. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to take away from the legitimacy of these victims. There are some very real, very wronged, and very hurt people out there who have suffered at the hands of youths. What I am trying to say, though, and what I do genuinely believe, is that the media tells a very one-sided story.

These offenders, these kids, they're really just victims themselves. They come from broken families, and they need our help. But that's not what the media is calling to give them. In preparation for this speech, I spoke to Emeritus Professor Ross Homel from the Griffith School of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

I learned a lot of interesting things speaking to him, but possibly the most important thing was that all the studies that have been done and all the data that has been collected, nothing supports juvenile detention. In fact, these studies consistently show that it makes the situation worse. What helps, what actually breaks the cycle, is to try and rehabilitate these kids, to treat them with love, to show them the kindness and the compassion and the empathy that they haven't been shown before.

And yet that's still not what we see in the media. I had to bypass them and go directly to a professor to find this out. But why? Because the media refuses to challenge us, because that's not what we want to hear. And because now that my generation has chosen to disengage, we've created an environment in which the traditional media can tell a very one-sided story and ignore a major stakeholder without us being there to hold them accountable.

So what does all this mean for our metaphorical tree? Well, when a tree is struck by lightning, it causes it to fracture down the middle and split into parts. Though it may survive this initial strike, the exposed insides and severed nutrient networks make it far more susceptible to disease and decay. And I think that's very much what's happened to us as a society. We were split, severed apart, by the storm clouds of change.

And while dramatic, it didn't kill us. We looked good for a while, but slowly these wedges have been driven in, pushing us further apart and hurting far more than the initial event. Our diseased prejudice and decaying empathy have slowly worked their way into the core of who we are as a society, and eventually, they'll bring us to our knees.

But there is another way. Just as a good gardener can strap an injured tree back together and support it until it heals itself, so we can bring ourselves back together. By reaching out and helping before hurting, we can reunite our severed generations and become one once again. It won't be quick, and it won't be easy.

The same as a gardener can't magically fix a tree, we can only do our little bit and hope that everyone else does, too. You and I may only be little leaves on the ends of big branches, but it's the leaves that produce the food for the greater organism. So let's dance in the rain of change. Let's feed each other hope and love. But most importantly, let's do it together. One world, one tree, one us.

JAMES SMITH: Really well done, Eli. Congratulations on a great speech. All right, let's kick off the interview. So what drew you to the idea of discussing the disconnect between generations when it comes to discussing things like justice and crime?

ElI GEARING: I think that social media, like I said in that, has drawn us apart. And it's a really serious issue. I think I may not see it quite as much with-- we still engage in communities, but I've become very aware as I speak to people, both in my generation and through different communities where I engage with people from different generations, as well, that there are these sorts of assumptions that get in the way.

There are things that sort of cause us to disengage and to not understand each other. And I think that lack of understanding can form a very fundamental issue in our society and our progression as a society where we can't listen to each other's problems and understand each other's wisdom. And that sort of stops progression.

JAMES SMITH: Interesting. And you spoke passionately about there being limited evidence for the upsides of youth detention, for example. What's your best concrete alternative for the justice system in terms of balancing the need for retribution, but also restoration?

ElI GEARING: Look, I think it's a very complicated issue. And to try and stand here and tell you that there was a very simple answer would be misleading. But what I can offer from my research and discussions with Professor Homel, as I mentioned in my speech, is I think fundamentally-- and Elizabeth touched on this earlier-- that we are the influences around us. The differences between us and the next person are the influences in our lives and the different things that happen.

And when you look at that at a fundamental level, you come to realise that the difference between me and one of these offenders is the situation into which they were born and the different people that are in their lives. And when you stop and think about that and then think about the fact that we're throwing them in prison in response to something going wrong, it doesn't make logical sense because we're taking people who have clearly had bad influences in their lives, and we're putting them in the one place where we can guarantee worse influences.

And I think that as a society and as a justice system, we have a strong priority on the victim, on talking about what's happened to the victim, and like you mentioned in your question, the idea of retribution. But even when we see in the media people calling for stronger penalties, which, like I said, I don't agree with, we see that fundamentally what they want is the offending to stop happening. They don't want it to happen to another person.

So when I was speaking to Professor Homel, he mentioned the fact that almost 80%-- or I think it's actually over 80% of the people in our juvenile detention centres are there without trial. They're there awaiting trial. So we've taken these kids that we know have bad influences, and before we look at the problem and try and help them, we've already thrown them in a place of really negative influence.

JAMES SMITH: Yeah.

ElI GEARING: So I think to answer your question, the approach that we need to take as a society is to look at the victims and to really try-- sorry, not the victims, the offenders. Look at the offenders and really try and connect with them and see what's happened to them on a personal level and how we can try and be that positive influence that they haven't had.

JAMES SMITH: Thank you, Eli. I really appreciate it. Very, very interesting. Thank you. OK, we're on the home stretch now. Our final contestant for today's national final is Molly Hoogland, who attends Santa Sabina College in NSW and is currently in Year 12. The subject for Molly's speech is 'T-shirt feminism'. Please welcome Molly.

MOLLY HOOGLAND: When I was seven or eight, my friend came to tennis training wearing a T-shirt that said, in big pink letters, 'mommy's little feminist'. We were the only girls in a team filled with boys, and they were all extremely offended by this fashion statement. Naturally, I wanted to know why. I asked her what it meant, that f-word on her T-shirt. And she told me, it means you believe that girls can do whatever boys can do.

That was when I realised that my capabilities weren't limited by being a female, that instead of waiting for Prince Charming to climb up my hair and rescue me, I could save myself. I decided then to call myself a feminist. That is the story of my discovery of the feminist movement. But the point of that story is not the bravery of the girl in the man's world of our primary school tennis team, nor my burgeoning social awareness.

The point of that story is the T-shirt. 'Girl power'. 'Girlboss'. 'Smash the patriarchy'. 'You go, girl'. 'The future is female'. Walk into a Target, a H&M, Dior fashion runway show, or your Instagram feed, and you'll find yourself bombarded with catchy taglines and slogans that, in modern society, seemingly encapsulate the feminist movement, a complex, nuanced, intersectional movement reduced to a line of text printed on a piece of fabric, a single typed word.

These slogans were crafted by modern feminists for a reason. They're catching, infectious. The fourth wave of feminism, the wave we are currently surfing in the early 21st century, is characterised by the use of internet activism, fitting for a digital age. Social media has been used by women's rights activists to propel change in many facets of the movement, hashtag #MeToo being a prominent example, as well as its sister taglines, #TimesUp and #BelieveWomen.

The key benefit of these hashtag communities is that they give everyone the opportunity to vocalise their experiences of oppression. You no longer need to be rich or famous or an academic in order to be a change-making feminist. All you need is a phone, and the sky's the limit, provided, of course, you've already smashed the glass ceiling.

Undoubtedly, the ability of the feminist movement to produce one-liners has fueled the fire in the fight for gender equality. I'm sure that the aforementioned feminist slogan T-shirts and social media hashtags have borne many a bell hooks and Emmeline Pankhurst. I myself as a feminist am a product of these products.

But alongside the truly groundbreaking consequences of the #MeToo movement, we also see Kim Kardashian's happy International Women's Day post, featuring a not-so-subtle promotion of her mobile game, ironically captioned, 'anything is possible for a girl who works hard'. We see Dior debuting a T-shirt on the catwalk proclaiming 'we should all be feminists', which is now selling for $1,400.

In Jessica Crispin's divisive book 'Why I Am Not a Feminist', she states that the feminist movement is now a self-serving brand popularised by CEOs and beauty companies, transformed into merchandise for a series of influential profiteers. She's not alone in this thinking. An article by 'The New York Times' stated that feminism is now a lucrative market for retailers and a source of corporate credibility because it is so mainstream.

The corporate exploitation of the feminist movement occurs within physical fashion retail, certainly, with companies profiting from the phenomenon of the feminist slogan T-shirt and doing little else to support the fight for gender equality. But this exploitation occurs more maliciously through what 'The Guardian' likes to call femvertising. What their now infamous article titled 'The Next Queasy Chapter in Feminism's Fourth Wave' began with hashtag #prettycurious, an advertising campaign by a UK energy company seemingly aimed at getting teenage girls interested in careers in the STEM field. The subsequent skyrocketing in profits suggested otherwise.

The slew of campaigns that came after realised that the feminist movement was hashtag trending and used this to their advantage, realising they could sell women more products by showing their support. The most prominent example of this is in 2014, when Pantene launched the viral hashtag #sorrynotsorry campaign, which focused on a woman's constant compulsion to unnecessarily apologise. Ironic, given the company's advertising had previously focused on telling women that their hair wasn't shiny enough.

I remember this wave of femvertising. I watched Dove campaigns with tears in my eyes, thinking how fantastic it was that these messages were being pushed, that these stories, my stories, to some extent, were being told. I was also thinking that on the next supermarket shop, I would ask my mum and dad to buy Dove soap instead of our usual Dettol.

These companies became incredibly good at playing on consumers' social consciousness. If you care about women's rights, they're saying, you'll buy our products because we care, too. And they do this by encapsulating their incredibly emotionally charged campaigns in a singular, punchy, shareable hashtag. Pretty curious. Sorry not sorry. Like a girl. Girls can.

The feminist movement is being taken from feminists by corporations, meaning feminist discourse is no longer about intersectionality or nuance. It is about how we can spread a very general message very quickly to the widest possible audience. And while this may increase the number of people who call themselves a feminist, it also increases the likelihood that these people have no idea what that f-word actually means, which really limits our capacity as a movement for structural, tangible change making.

In the digital age, these hashtags often become prey to what the BBC like to call slacktivists, or less pejoratively, clicktivists. This species of feminists are happy to change their profile picture, post to their Instagram story, or share the latest femvertising campaign. But their action stops there. The slogan becomes their sphere, the number of deleted hate comments their daily tally of misogynist fatalities.

The feminist movement is no longer real. It's no longer ours, detached from the reality of female oppression. It has become a tool for opportunistic clicktivists and corporations to grab on to hashtags for personal gain. But how are we supposed to create change when the extent of active feminist conversation for the everyday person consists of a hashtag? How are we supposed to fight the growing movement of the modern manosphere when we are being sold and spoon-fed our own beliefs through corporate advertising?

As a feminist who is running out of things to believe in, I want to see a movement that fights with fact, not with fake. In a movement that has so much left to give and so much change still to make, relying on hashtags and T-shirts is just not good enough. If we want to close the gender pay gap, if we want to remove gender-based obstacles to health care, if we want to fight rigid social expectations and violence against women, we need to look beyond our screens and our closets.

Realistically, we can't single-handedly halt the exploitative actions of a multinational corporation, and we can't rely on social media influencers to lead the charge for us. So the onus is on us as individuals to stop giving in to the easy route to activism and start educating ourselves. After all, we can't fight for something we know nothing about. We can't smash the patriarchy or create a future that is female if we only think about these phrases as a way to buy in on the social currency activism has become.

At the risk of sounding clichéd, you don't become a feminist by wearing a T-shirt that says 'girl power'. You become a feminist by realising that girls have power, and that no hashtag can truly encapsulate how incredible that power is. And neither, sadly, for my 7-year-old self, can a T-shirt.

JAMES SMITH: Excellently done, Molly. Thank you so much for that speech. Really, really interesting. OK, I'm going to kick us off with a bit of a thorny one. So in your speech, you are particularly scathing about femvertising and one-liners and slacktivism and all those types of things. Aside from adding numbers to the cause, do you think that there are any other positives to this trend, or are they pretty much always pernicious?

MOLLY HOOGLAND: I think that it spreads a very general message about feminism, as I'm saying. And I think that generally, they don't have a lot of benefit because I look at it as kind of an excuse and a way to ignore the problems that continue to face women today, the problems that we should really be focusing on. And instead of focusing on these really pressing issues such as women's right issues that uniquely affect, say, women of colour or non-able-bodied women.

And it's kind of an excuse for us to wear a T-shirt that says 'girl power' and think that we're doing enough. And so I think that's really stopping any sort of progression that's happening. So I think they have more net harms than net benefits.

JAMES SMITH: Excellent. I really like the view of intersectional feminism being the next thing that we need to focus on. Is there any particular role model that you've got in that particular space? Is there a feminist role model that you would follow in that?

MOLLY HOOGLAND: I think there was a book written called 'Hood Feminism'. I can't really remember who wrote it. But that's a really influential one. And that really talks about how feminism isn't this all-encompassing term. There's so many different aspects to it. And especially with people of colour and women of colour, especially in this current climate that we have, especially in the US, but also in Australia.

I think that that's a really important aspect to look at it because even though for a white privileged woman who might have the vote and might be out of the kitchen, generally speaking, this isn't the case for all women. And I think that if we focus on it as a general aspect, this is also limiting our progression. So we need to focus on all the different aspects of feminism as it exists in today's society.

JAMES SMITH: Nuance is always important, right? That's fantastic. So you said you want to become a journalist, and hopefully that means you enjoy this type of interview. What attracts you to journalism in the first place?

MOLLY HOOGLAND: I think I'm really interested in politics generally, but the part I'm most interested about is, I guess-- well, I think the most important people in politics would be the voters, the people who are voting, especially in democracy. And I'm really interested in why people vote the way they vote. I think in a polarised society, we tend to-- I'll take a Trump voter as an example. We'll take a look at a Trump voter and think, oh, they're just voting Trump because they're racist or they're bigoted.

But I think that's really unfair. And I think if we're going to have a constructive political debate, we need to actually understand where they're coming from, because obviously, there's a whole host of complex reasons why they would vote for Trump. I would never, but I think it's really important for us to actually understand, A, because I'm just interested in why they would vote that way, and B, because I think that we need to actually understand why they do what they do in order to challenge their actions and their beliefs.

JAMES SMITH: That is a very, very noble cause. And I hope that you do become a journalist to answer those exact questions. Thank you so much, Molly. It was great to meet you.

MOLLY HOOGLAND: Thank you.

JAMES SMITH: OK. Everyone will be moved back into the waiting room, and speakers will be brought back one by one in the same order to deliver impromptu speeches on a topic provided by the judging panel. They will have 4 minutes in which to prepare a 3-minute speech. They will prep on screen, deliver their speech, and then go to a breakout room for more feedback before returning to the waiting room. Excellent. Please welcome Wesley Chen from Victoria with their speech on 'the burning question'.

WESLEY CHEN: The burning question which humanity faces is, what is the meaning of life? It's the question that every child asks themselves at some point. And this question keeps coming back to them when they're middle aged, and even in their senile years. It's the question which philosophers have grappled with unpacking for centuries and centuries, yet have not come up with a sufficient answer. What is the meaning of life? What is the purpose of human existence?

The average human born today has a life expectancy of 90 years, and that is only increases every single decade. Last decade, people born last decade would have a life expectancy of 80 years. But the young people born today, despite having this immense advantage of having the longest life expectancy in the history of any human generation, is that they're born into a world of uncertainty.

2,000 years ago, a person's life would be set out for them at their birth. If you were the son of a farmer, you would become a farmer. If you were the daughter of a baker, you would become a baker. However, the person born in today's age has a life fraught with uncertainty. The son born of a baker could become a diplomat. The daughter born of an Olympian cyclist could become a teacher.

So if we have this life expectancy and we have all of the opportunities at our disposal, yet we live in a time of uncertainty, what is the meaning of life? What is our life meant to be? And I would like to say that I have discovered it. And to put this in perspective, I'm going against history's greatest philosophers. But I think I have an answer to this burning question.

The meaning of life and the definition of fulfilment is to create memories worth remembering. Two summers ago, I rowed for the first time. It was the first time I ever got into a boat and participated in this sport. I was not the greatest rower, but I gave it a go. And I had the company to create memories worth remembering.

Throughout the season, I didn't achieve any goals-- medals. I didn't even place on the podium. But what I had by the end of the season was stories to tell-- stories of passion and dedication, stories of pain and joy, stories of camaraderie, stories of mateship. Under the beating sun, rowing in a crew with seven other like-minded young people, we created the best memories ever.

And so these memories have stuck with me and have transformed and shaped who I have become today. And this is the greatest impact on me, is that I had the chance to make memories. And that is why the answer to the burning question of what is the purpose of life is to create memories worth remembering.

JAMES SMITH: Please welcome back Addison from the Northern Territory with their speech on 'the burning question'.

ADDISON PERRIS: The burning question can be different for everyone. But today I want us to think about family. What makes a family? There are different kinds of families depending on how you approach the topic, and it can be taken in different stances for everyone. Is family just a bloodline? Is it just the people you live with in your house? Or does family include the people you spend your day with-- your friends, your coworkers?

So what kind of family are we pushing in to people? Because the idea of family is a mother, a father, and 2 kids. But that isn't the only family that exists. There are different forms. Sometimes there's no dad. Sometimes there's no mum. Sometimes there's five kids. Sometimes there's only one. So what is the idea that we're pushing on to young people these days into what makes a successful life and a successful family?

I read once that 1 in 4 fathers leave their sons, yet the standard is a mother, a father and 2 kids. So, if we think about the families that don't look the same-- the families that live with their grandparents, where the uncle and the aunt stay in the house with them. I live with my pop, my grandma, my aunt, 2 of my cousins and my mum, but not a dad.

So why do we assume that every family is going to have this picture-perfect life with photos hung on the walls and kids sleeping in separate rooms? Are we pressuring kids into believing that the idealistic view of families is the only way to live? We send kids to pop-up stands for Father's Day and Mother's Day and any family-related holidays to buy and shop for presents for them.

But we don't leave out the ones that don't have a dad. We send them there to spend their money on people that don't really have anyone to give gifts. The burning question asked us to understand what makes a family. So what makes a family to people is different. What family do you count? My family is the people I live with, the people who I share a bloodline with, but also my friends that I spend time with at school and the people who I know will help me when I need it.

But this isn't the kind of family we talk about in media or in the world views. This isn't the family we talk about when we talk about growing old and completing this life, this perfect, idealistic life. At what point do we understand that family is different and can be different, and we shouldn't push the idea that a husband, wife, and 2 kids is the only way to have a successful life?

Women are pushed into marrying and having kids. Men are pushed into having a wife and having a successful job. But the family works in different ways, and we need to understand this to help our children succeed and to help them have their life they wish to have and not the life we forced them to have. But can we change this in time? Thank you.

JAMES SMITH: Please welcome back Sophia from Western Australia with their speech on 'the burning question'.

SOPHIA MARRA: Our world is alight. Political conflict, global warming, technological advancements, all bringing us to this moment of confrontation, this burning question. When and why will it end? The rise of AI has been prophesied in the film industry for many years, from the works of Spielberg to the cautionary tales of John Connor. We have long since dreaded the day when technology surpasses us and mankind becomes redundant in the face of these machines.

And yet we don't remember that we are the ones that created this vision. Anything we are worrying about, anything we dread, it is a creation of our own minds. Recently, a new AI model has hit the market-- ChatGPT. And we're divided between the sceptics and the avid supporters. Initially a member of the former, I was unwilling to render or forgo any sense of free will I felt I still had to a nameless, faceless technological enterprise.

ChatGPT has been marketed as a conversational model. It answers your questions and learns from its mistakes to make meaningful and thought-provoking comments on current issues. As a sceptic, I simply had to test this out. The opportunity presented itself when I was researching for a literature assignment. I had to find some quotes on Heinrich Böll's novel 'The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum'. And ChatGPT tried to tell me that the three main male protagonists-- a politician, a policeman, and a criminal-- were the same person in disguise.

This sent me into an existential spiral. How could my lit teacher have failed to mention such an important note? And should I write my essay on how men exploit the social class structure in order to gain power? I questioned ChatGPT. I asked it if it was correct, and it told me no, and gave me a list of correct quotes. What I found astounding about this is not that Chat recognised its mistake, but that I was required to question it to get my answer. I was not redundant in this process. Not blind subordination, but cooperation.

We have dreaded the day when machines surpass us, when they can educate and maintain themselves without our help. But perhaps we can work in harmony. The burning question-- will machines of our own creation herald our demise, or can we work in harmony together with the machines to build a brighter future, one where both man and the computer work together in harmony? And hopefully we don't have to call on Arnold Schwarzenegger to save the day. Thank you.

JAMES SMITH: OK, please welcome our next contestant, Elizabeth from the ACT, with their speech on 'the burning question'.

ELIZABETH BARKER: So here's the burning question, or rather, the question of burning. Is it ever OK to burn books? Now, this is a question that's come up a lot in human history. It's well-known that, too, of course, in [? be it for ?] guilty of Godwin's principle, the Nazis used to burn books. And we really didn't like that. But what about books that promote ideologies that society as a whole really disagrees with, such as 'Mein Kampf' would be the obvious example.

What about books that are simply poorly written, sitcoms or romantic comedies that fall afoul of many cliches? These books arguably add no value to human society, and in the case of 'Mein Kampf' or similar books, they actively diminish it. Books can be dangerous, but the question is, it ever OK to silence them? I say no. It's never OK to silence these books, and it's never OK to burn them.

For legal reasons, I will exclude books that contain personal information like Social Security numbers. It's never OK to burn these books because of freedom of speech would be the obvious reason, but also because even if you don't agree with the ideas in the books, you can still learn from them. And if you don't want to learn from them, then you can at least challenge your ideas against them. Look at your current preconceptions. Consider the information in those books and see if perhaps you need to make changes.

Finally, even if the book has no redeeming qualities, you can at least learn what went wrong. Only by not burning these books, only by considering their content, can we figure out how to improve human society and prevent the development of people like Adolf Hitler and the ideology that he wrote.

It's wrong to burn books, not only because of the ideas that they contain and what we might learn from them, but because the ideology, the idea that we should burn books, is to treat the readers as childish. It is to say that the readers of these books do not know their own minds, that they do not know to consider these ideas and not immediately accept them.

However, we may not want to burn these books, but that doesn't mean we have to listen to them. We have to allow these people the right to express their ideas, but we don't have to publish them. We don't have to read them. And we definitely don't have to agree with them. You have the right to express your ideas, but you don't have to listen. Thank you.

JAMES SMITH: Excellent. Welcome back, Eli from Queensland, with their speech on 'the burning question'.

ELI GEARING: Questions lead to answers. I mean, that's why we ask them in the first place, right? And it's asking these questions that have got us to where we are now as a society. When we go back and we look at how we've evolved over time, we find that the true progress and the true distance when we make real change is once people had time to start questioning things. It's once we moved away from just being simple hunter-gatherers and into societies that we had the time to ask real questions.

And like I said at the beginning, it's these real questions that get us real answers. Even today, though, we still have a long way to go, and we're faced all the time with more real and difficult questions. Possibly one of the hardest at the moment that's facing our society from all over Australia is the prospect of the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

We have so many different questions all burning around this one concept, this one idea, and a bill that we're looking to pass. But at the same time, we seem to have so few answers. In fact, the answers that we are getting only lead to more questions. We look at Parliament trying to sell us on this idea, or parts of it anyway, but we also see an absence of real information on the difference it can make.

We know from experience that the different ways in which we've tried to make good on our relationship with our First Nations people have so often just been to look good on paper. We do things like have guardians for these people who really are adults capable of making their own decisions. And what we create is a mechanism to control them. And so it's no wonder that now when we're looking at making an amendment to our constitution, what holds us together as a nation, that we have these burning questions on what the real purpose is.

Is this change really to try and make good on it, or are we simply looking for another thing that looks good on paper? Is this change that we're trying to enact actually going to help us, or is it simply going to make it look like we're making progress? Are we truly going to be giving a voice to these people, or are we simply going to be faking it?

And I think it's when we find situations like these-- and there are many more examples-- that we find that the question and answer process is really not one leading to another, but it goes both ways. We have a chicken and an egg style situation where questions may be asked for answers, but at the end of the day, answers lead to more questions.

JAMES SMITH: Fantastic. Please welcome back our final contestant for the impromptu section, Molly from NSW, with their speech on 'the burning question'.

MOLLY HOOGLAND: Usually I'd rather die than admit that I have something in common with the over-40 crowd. But sometimes the resemblance is too obvious to ignore. One of my guiltiest pleasures is scrolling endlessly through Facebook. Sometimes I have to stare at a meme for 5 minutes before I actually understand what it's saying.

My obsession with buying clothes for my dog is probably as close to a midlife crisis as you can get, and Urban Dictionary is a staple in my search history in order to keep up in conversations with my peers about hot Cheeto girls and simps. More pertinent than this is my absolute lack of ability to operate a technological device.

Until a couple of weeks ago, I thought that Google Chrome was a website where you could paint online, and I thought that you could sing out of tune into the Shazam app and it would identify the song you were singing. Unfortunately, not even a robot is that patient or that tolerant. In an increasingly digital world, however, IT is becoming such an important part of education and employment, and my lack of ability to operate a technological device frequently gets in the way of, for example, presenting a presentation in class.

And this doesn't mix well with my fear of the IT staff at school, who are more judgmental than my 12-year-old sister, which is really saying something. In fact, in this digital world that we live in, it's found that IT skills such as sending emails, operating advanced administration systems like Microsoft Excel, are required by 30% of employers. And it seems that in the next 5 years, this will increase to 90%.

But there's a huge gap in digital literacy in Australia right now. And yes, as I've already pointed out, this exists between older people and younger people, but there is a more pressing gap. And this is with students living in low SES areas. And in a world that is so rapidly moving towards a completely digital society, the burning question is, how do we address these gaps? And how do we address them now?

Research from Macquarie University has found that low-SES students are severely disadvantaged in terms of their digital literacy. This is due to a lack of resource, a general lack of funding, and a lack of technological skills in teachers. The tech revolution is coming fast, so the burning question is, what do we do to prevent these students from becoming disadvantaged in education, employment, and beyond?

This is obviously to do with a wider issue that comes down to funding for remote schools and public schools. But we need a more accommodating system in a technological world that favours the privilege, as technology is still a luxury. We need to introduce programmes that introduce digital literacy and a necessity for digital skills from an early age. The burning question is, how do we address these gaps, and how do we address them now? Because we're running out of time to extinguish the flames, that is, people left behind by the technological revolution due to gaps in digital literacy. Thank you.

CHARLEE JANE: Fantastic Thank you, Justine. So look, very well done to all speakers in today's competition. Sorry. I think you all did a really fantastic job, and you should be so proud of getting to this stage in this competition. It's a very big deal, getting to the national finals of the Plain English Speaking Award. OK, so whilst this is a competition, I just want to say that this isn't about winning, right?

Every single one of you have had the privilege of speaking to a really wide audience of people. Maybe not in today's final specifically, but from the local all the way to the state and now to nationals, you've been able to get up in front of an audience and speak about an issue that you are truly passionate about. And it's not about winning this competition. It's about convincing others to adopt a particular point of view or to think about an issue in a different way.

So it's about convincing the audience and changing minds. In order to convince a wide audience of people, it's important to remember that we have to speak in plain English, the name of this competition. So we're speaking to the layman and not a panel of experts because we want to change as many minds as possible about the particular issue that you've chosen to talk about.

It's also important to note that this is a persuasive speaking competition. So we have to have that specificity in what we're talking about. And we have to present some really compelling arguments on a particular side of the debate. And then we have to present a solution to that issue, which almost all speakers did in today's competition. Very well done.

So, look, adjudicators judge speeches based on three main criteria. We have manner, matter, and method. In terms of manner, every single speaker in today's national final smashed it. Every speaker spoke candidly. They didn't preach their point or their argument, and they spoke in a really down-to-earth manner. So that's a really great way of convincing your audience.

If you're preaching about an issue, you tend to put off half of your audience because they're not inclined to listen to you if they feel as if they're being lectured. But every single person today was able to communicate their point of view very effectively through the way that they spoke.

In terms of method, the way that we structure the speech. We love a good framing device as adjudicators, like a metaphor or an anecdote that we can weave throughout the speech. We would like speeches to take the audience on a journey, so to really capture them with an engaging introduction, to take them on a journey throughout the middle of their speech, and then, most importantly, to end with a solution or a call to arms.

And this comes into the idea of matter, as well, what we're talking about. So we want people to talk about a broader social or political context outside of the issues that just affect you, which every speaker did today. Fantastic job. And the most important thing is the takeaway for the audience. What can the audience do to make a difference in their lives, or what can change on a legislative level to make a difference for this particular issue? So we need that really solid solution at the end of a speech in order to have some kind of takeaway from the issue that you're speaking about.

In terms of the impromptu speech, so similarly to that prepared speech, we want that specificity when it comes to talking about a particular social or political issue. So we don't want a broad philosophical discussion. What we want is a really solid, persuasive speech with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Importantly, we would like a really solid link to the topic. So what is specifically that burning question, which I think every single speaker did really well today, with those links to the topic of the burning question.

And of course, like the prepared speech, we like a solution, a takeaway from that speech that the audience can adopt, or those changes on a legislative level. So congratulations to all speakers. As I said, fantastic feat getting to the national final of the Plain English Speaking Award. And now I'm going to announce the winner of today's local final, keep you all on the edge of your seats.

So the speaker who has won today's national final had a really nuanced discussion in both the prepared and the impromptu speech. They spoke about something that was really relevant in terms of the social context that we're living in. It was about a very particular political and social issue. It had a really solid structure with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It took that audience on the journey. We had a good solution at the end. And we had a really natural delivery, as well. We could hear that authentic voice come through in both the prepared and the impromptu round. So congratulations to Molly Hoogland with 'T-shirt feminism'.

MOLLY HOOGLAND: Thank you so much. I just want to thank all the judges. You guys delivered amazing feedback, and I obviously want to thank the chairpeople, as well. Thank you so much for that. And all of the other speakers, you guys spoke so well, and I definitely learned a lot from your speeches. And thank you to everyone who organised this event for the wonderful opportunity to speak about something I'm really passionate about. So thank you.