Video transcript
Plain English Speaking Award 2024 - NSW State Final

[intro music]

JUSTINE CLARKE: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the NSW Teachers Federation Conference Centre for the state final of the NSW Plain English Speaking Award for 2024. My name is Justine Clarke, and I'm the speaking competitions officer at the Arts Unit for the Department of Education. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet today.

These are the lands of the Gadigal people, and I pay my respects to Elders, past and present, and extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today. While we listen to the voices of the young people in this competition today, I hope we remember that First Nations people are our original storytellers and instigators of the oral tradition.

The Plain English Speaking Award is a statewide competition in its 47th year.

Local and regional finals were held both in-person and online, with students meeting up at host schools as far away as Tamworth and Nambucca Heads. This year, state semi-finals were held 2 weeks ago in the beautiful offices of the Holding Redlich in Sydney CBD, and I'd like to thank Holding Redlich for supporting our competition in this way.

From nearly 300 speakers who entered at the beginning, the very worthy 6 before us were selected for today's final. I'd like to thank all those schools that hosted events leading up to today and congratulate all the students who participated in this competition at local, regional and semi-final levels. I acknowledge and appreciate the efforts of teachers, principals and parents in supporting these events.

We'd like to acknowledge our sponsors, Holding Redlich, ACCO Brands Australia, and the Australia Britain Society, and the English Speaking Union for their support of this year's Plain English Speaking Award. We're grateful for your commitment to helping the young people in NSW raise their voices and speak about the things that matter to them. Thank you also to the Teachers Federation Conference Centre for providing our venue today.

It's always a nice place for us to hold a state final. Finally, I'd like to introduce you to our dual chairpeople and timekeepers today. Eesa Khaled is from Granville Boys High School and was an impressive and passionate speaker in the regional finals of this competition earlier this year. Lilith Dartnell is from Plumpton High School, and Lilith will be competing in the Junior Secondary Speaking Award next term.

And she chaired one of our regional finals and did a really great job. So, I'd like to welcome, first of all, Eesa to take over proceedings from here.

[applause]

EESA KHALED: Thank you, Justine. My name is Eesa Khaled and I'm from Granville Boys High School, and it is my great pleasure to be your chairperson for the state final of the Plain English Speaking Awards for 2024. Before we get to our speakers, let me introduce you to the adjudication panel. Our 3 adjudicators for the final today are Lina Amoor, Himaja Dave and Lloyd Cameron. Lina Amoor is an accomplished public speaker who attended Moorebank High School.

She was a state finalist in the Legacy Junior Public Speaking Award in 2018. She was also a state semi-finalist in the same competition in 2017 and in the Plain English Speaking Award in 2019. She is currently in her third year of podiatric medicine at Western Sydney University and is a regular adjudicator for the Arts Unit. Please welcome Lina Amoor.

[applause]

Himaja Dave had a successful school career as a public speaker and debater when she attended Crestwood High School. Her team made the state final of the Premier's Debating Challenge for Years 9 and 10 in 2017, and Himaja was part of the winning Western Sydney team at the Junior State Debating Championships that same year. Himaja was state champion of the Plain English Speaking Award in 2019 and runner up of the national competition.

She was also a member of the Combined High School's representative squad in 2019. She is currently working as an equity derivatives trader at UBS after receiving her Bachelor of Actuarial Studies and Economics from UNSW. Please welcome Himaja Dave.

[applause]

Lloyd Cameron retired as the Speaking Competitions Officer of the NSW Department of Education's Arts Unit in 2017. In that role, he coordinated debating and public speaking in NSW primary and secondary schools for over 20 years. He was national chairperson of the Plain English Speaking Award Association from 2000 until 2017 and has written over 30 study guides on senior HSC, English and drama texts. He is now enjoying travelling and spending time with his grandchildren. It is a privilege to welcome back Lloyd Cameron.

[applause]

We now come to the prepared section of the competition. Each speaker will speak for 8 minutes on a subject of their choice. There will be a warning bell at 6 minutes and 2 bells at 8 minutes. A continuous bell will be rung at 8.5 minutes. Our first contestant is Murphy Xi from the King's School. The subject of Murphy's speech is 'Garbage politics'.

Please welcome Murphy Xi.

[applause]

MURPHY XI: The first time I visited Indonesia was in 2015. As my family and I made our way outside the immediate business districts of Jakarta, where our hotel was stationed, into the less developed parts of town, it was almost impossible, even for my 7-year-old self, not to notice the sheer amount of plastic. Driving past makeshift homes in shantytowns of East Jakarta, people's lives and livelihoods were surrounded, quite literally, with garbage.

And while the beaches and resorts of Southeast Asian countries comprise much of the holiday experiences of Australian tourists in the region, it is the image of the slum that, cruelly and probably insensitively, dominates the way many Westerners like us picture the developing world. So, it might surprise you that this garbage does not even necessarily originate from such countries in the first place.

Rubbish heaps comprise day to day life for many people of these nations, but it is rarely their rubbish. There is a phenomenon, a whole industry, in fact, where developing countries import the garbage produced by developed nations. And sure, there is an immediate financial incentive for this. Developed nations are eager to offload their rubbish, so the problem of overconsumption is out of sight and out of mind, whilst developing nations will happily receive money for accepting this waste.

But this garbage is often hazardous or toxic, and while nations may promise to recycle it, they seldom have the laws, infrastructure or technology to do so. And so, rubbish from all over the world piles up in the streets of dense urban areas in large heaps that grow ever bigger by the day. Naturally, you might assume that there is an easy and obvious fix to this issue.

Simply put an end to these programs. You'd be forgiven for expecting me to now take up the mantle of an ecowarrior inspired by Craig Reucassel's 'The War on Waste' and demand that those in power finally liberate those in developing nations from the yoke of our garbage with faint hints of Saviour complex beyond my words. However, a closer inspection of this issue reveals that the dynamic between environmental protection and economic development is, in fact, very complicated.

See, instinctively we feel as if shipping off our waste to developing nations is a terrible injustice. It feels like a continuation of the exploitation of the global south, a grotesque symbol for the ongoing power imbalance between the hegemonic West and the subjugated poor. The dominant Western perspective that the developing world exists as a rubbish tip for the wealthiest citizens of the globe is, therefore, nothing short of neocolonialism.

Yet this perspective has existed ever since the end of the Cold War, and the integration of all nations into complex globalised trade networks. Back in 1991, then chief economist of the World Bank, Lawrence Summer, described the pristine air quality of Africa as inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles and, therefore, argues that the logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in poor countries as 'impeccable'.

In addition, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, ironically argued that people in developing countries would rationally accept increased exposure to hazardous pollutants in exchange for opportunities to increase their productivity and, hence, their income. And so, we get to where we are now. Even putting aside the colonial connotations of this dynamic, we should be rightly suspicious of the argument that there are no environmental or health risks that come from the global waste trade.

See, when waste is transported around the globe, it is often filled with chemical contaminants like lead, mercury and cadmium, which are harmful to inhale. But even worse, the incineration of vast amounts of plastic produces toxic smoke, and untreated plastic just becomes landfill. And even with regulation, corporations continue to circumvent these, ensuring that waste is neither properly treated nor recycled.

The harms are patently obvious. So, why don't we just accept responsibility for our own garbage, given that we have the capability to do so? Well, while Western nations had hundreds of years of industrialisation to aid their economic development, this is not true of many other nations. While only now reaping the economic benefits of environmentally damaging practices like fossil fuel usage. To make this issue even more complex, a surprising reality is that many thousands of people make a living from scouring through garbage in search of goods to sell and items to recycle.

Some people credit scavenging through this waste for helping to pay their children's university tuition. Many people in some of the poorest parts of the poorest countries on Earth are financially dependent on this seemingly imbalanced power dynamic between the developed and developing worlds. When wandering through the streets of Jakarta, I saw street vendors selling basic items like old clothes and cheap jewellery, goods that now I realise may have been salvaged from waste of tourists like myself.

Goods that were helping people make a living for themselves and feed their families. So, is it really just for us to snap our fingers and suddenly reverse this arrangement, knowing that it will plunge people into further poverty? The paradox is this: for developing nations, trade is often their predominant means of economic development, but the cost of trade with wealthier nations is accepting the literal garbage of these countries.

To alleviate mass poverty, maybe the status quo must continue.

[bell rings]

So how can we reconcile these competing economic and environmental concerns? Well, as the people of the globe become more economically mobile, they will just create more waste themselves, so simply advocating for us as a species to stop creating waste is not only unrealistic but also, itself, a little neocolonial.

Why should we tell the people of other nations to stop creating waste when waste is the inevitable byproduct of a more safe, secure and financially stable existence? Not to mention the obvious, that using less plastic doesn't abrogate us of our responsibility to manage the plastic that already exists as landfill. So, maybe the solution is to find a more tenable status quo, one that accommodates the economic benefits of the industry and the overall environmental and health concerns.

Let's ensure that waste is treated before it is shipped beyond our shores. We already have the capability to do so, and we know that the likelihood of developing nations treating this waste when it arrives is low. So, let's make sure that we're not contaminating the environments of these places even further. Let's invest in the recycling capabilities of developing nations through bodies like the Indonesian Plastic Industry Association, which have the incentive to deal with waste but don't have the money to completely re-haul their existing systems.

As local institutions that know their areas of operations well, this will ensure that said nations can keep their profitable waste-handling industries without destroying the ecosystem at the same place. This will also ensure that when the citizens of these nations are themselves lifted out of poverty, they will already have a system to deal with the increased waste without offloading it to some even poorer country.

And sure, maybe we do feel bad that these countries need to bear the impacts of our waste-handling. But it's not just because of some vaguely imperialistic sense of pity that we should at least attempt to solve this issue.

[bell rings]

As the wealthiest nation in the region and one that actively contributes to the issue, we not only have the power but the moral obligation to do something.

And with a little bit of leadership from Australia, maybe Vietnam and Malaysia and Indonesia, beautiful countries right on our doorstep will no longer only conjure up images of slums and rubbish tips. Thank you.

[applause]

EESA KHALED: Our second contestant is Violet FitzSimons. Violet attends Oxley College in Bowral, and the subject of her speech is 'The aliens will start World War III'. Please welcome Violet FitzSimons.

[applause]

VIOLET FITZSIMONS: Kourtney Kardashian, on principle, has never said anything relatable in her life. As a reality TV starlet, wellness gummy entrepreneur and Hollywood it girl, there is little need to. So, imagine my shock snuggled up on my grandma's couch, my trip to Sydney, mid reality TV marathon, when Kardashian divulged, 'I never read the news. It gives me bad vibes.' A statement which, at its very essence, encompasses the current mood of Australian society.

You can't turn the page of your newspaper or, more realistically, swipe on Instagram without visibly recoiling a sickening feeling in your stomach as you read about the hostages in Gaza or the fallen soldiers of Ukraine. Our news cycle has become suffocating in its severity, to the extent that most Australian readers are either desensitised or avoiding the news entirely because, whilst reading this content, it's jarring to confront the enormity of the evil our world is capable of.

Over this past year, I found myself checking out from the news and instead investing my mental energy in 'Keeping up with the Kardashians'. The saga picking Gucci over Chanel is relatively easy to follow, but the wars raging on the other side of the world are impossible to understand. How could humans, the same people that burned their lip while drinking their morning cup of tea, do such things?

How does Putin look himself in the mirror? How do people storm kibbutzes, hold hostages, commit genocide? It's unfathomable and entirely unreadable because the core of any good story, from Harry Potter to Citizen Kane, is empathy. That bond that we create between ourselves and another living being that we see essentially as sharing our same humanity. Cinderella is just another girl.

Bluey is just another kid Oppenheimer is just another man. We can empathise and engage with each and every one of these characters because we see ourselves in them. And it is in this fundamental truth that humans emotionally connect with people who they deem to be like them, that the cause of Kardashian's concern was born because all these tragedies that circulate in our news cycle are caused by one thing: aliens.

Not ET or Spock, but the aliens that Orwell wrote about in his essays on anti-Semitism. As Orwell saw it, an alien isn't necessarily green or adorned with antennae. It is simply a being that is not like us. Someone who is categorised as intrinsically other. Once you view someone as alien, Orwell theorised you could commit any number of evils against them.

Because once someone isn't like you, it isn't that big of a leap to think they aren't as human as you. This mindset of alienation squashes curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge, instead encouraging judgement. Judgement creates ignorance, which allows for the mongering of hatred, the building of stereotypes, the degradation of a people until their identities are simplified to the word 'them', contrasted by 'us'.

Once you are able to categorise someone as alien to you, Judgement is where it starts. But the thing with alienating others is that in doing so, we negate any ability we had to actively learn about them. Alienating people is like pushing them into a really dark corner, and humans are afraid of the dark. We don't like what we don't know.

And worse than that, we demonise it. And so, once a group of people is alienated, conflict arises. Where there is conflict, there is inevitably power imbalance. And from this, any number of evils can occur. That's when the news becomes unreadable. That's when children are held hostage based purely upon their nationality. That's when countries are invaded with the sole ethos that they are not the nation from which you come.

That's when we see thousands of men, women and children, humans at their very essence, not alien at all, dead. Aliens start wars. You can see it in Nazi Germany and the Rwandan genocide in the apartheid. Alienation is an archaic easy-bake recipe for heinous evil. As Martin Luther King wrote, alienation is a form of living death. It is the acid of despair that dissolves society when the bonds of empathy that bind us to each living being are broken. That is when our society begins to crumble.

And when our very perception of what is right and wrong is ruptured. And so, in her effervescent wisdom, Kourtney Kardashian was onto something. The news is, in short, very bad vibes. Because yes, the news shows us tragedy caused by alienation. And to be frank, that's a bad vibe. But the worst vibe is that this lack of curiosity and breakdown of empathy is reflected in me and you, us newsreaders who purposely open the ABC app when other people are around to look super cool because when we inevitably click away from some heavy article with an excuse that falls under the bad vibes category, we stop hearing stories about people who aren't like us.

We stop hearing about Ukrainian grandmother Maria Nikolaevna, who emerged from her bomb shelter with her 3 granddaughters to find their parents dead on the street outside their family home. We stop hearing about the child patients of a bombed Palestinian hospital holding a press conference in the waiting room, quite simply pleading to live as other children live. We stop hearing stories, and stories have the power to transform aliens into living, breathing humans.

Look, I struggled to read these articles and even talking about them is hard. But if we allow ourselves to turn away, we prevent these stories from being told.

[bell rings]

We dismantle the opportunity we have in this digital world to build bonds of empathy between people separated by oceans and races and wars through stories that will break your heart but that will make you care.

So, if you don't care to read the news, you'll start to see aliens everywhere. It takes so little to view someone as other to you, to think that their circumstance could never be your own. And whilst that seems simple and relatively harmless if we allow our society to foster apathy towards a human story because it's sad or scary or depressing, we're making the very issue we deem to be bad vibes worse.

Our emotional disconnect allows for the manufacturing of aliens, and aliens have caused every war that has ever occurred on this planet. But curiosity has a power to prevent them. So, read the news. Join the war against alienation. But have a plan. Don't go running out into the battlefield in some righteous quest for glory with the war paint to the Sydney Morning Herald subscription across your forehead.

It won't end well. Set boundaries. Making yourself feel horrible because someone else feels horrible solves nothing. As someone who really struggles with anxiety, I know how hard it is for the news to be weaponised against yourself. It's really difficult to grapple with those things and not feel awful, but you need to know when to set that boundary and to treat your downtime with just as much severity as staying informed.

A great way to do this is to diversify. Seek out ways to creatively reconnect with local stories and actively de-apathise yourself towards the people they involve. The Refugee Camp in my neighbourhood program is an excellent opportunity to do just that. The interactive workshop demands you hand over your possessions and experience what it's like to play and having empathy for people on the worst day of their lives is great, but understanding them as people, not just victims, is deeply important.

[bell rings]

Seek out books, movies and artworks by culturally diverse creators. Create a direct line of cultural understanding beyond the news articles written by Australians for Australians. In a digital age, knowledge is at our fingertips, and the ability to learn isn't just a right, it's a responsibility, but a super cool one. The same stories that made me feel helpless and suffocated to the extent I can now recite entire episodes of 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians'.

Those same stories can allow you to fight against alienation. What could be a better vibe than that?

[applause]

EESA KHALED: Thank you, Violet. Our third speaker is Olivia Wright. Olivia attends Hurlstone Agricultural High School, and the subject of her speech is 'Blurred lines'. Please welcome Olivia Wright.

[applause]

OLIVIA WRIGHT: I'm sure most people here today have a relative who was on the slightly more conservative side in terms of music taste. I remember my pop constantly changing the radio station every time we hopped into the car to something like Smooth FM or Triple M, with him claiming that all that modern rap music is, and I quote, putting kids on the early admissions list for juvie.

Historically, rap, R&B, and drill culture have always been intertwined with violence, and there's always been this stark divide between what we deem as inciting violence or, rather, enacting catharsis for communities. But with the aggrandisement of media consumption and growing concerns over the vulnerability of youth, it appears we're having this debate all over again. But if we examine other forms of violence prevalent in music media, we need to ask ourselves, is this form of violence in rap culture truly warranted?

I think a real prominent Australian example would be One Four, the drill rap group from Western Sydney, which have been particularly controversial with lyrics that supposedly incite violence. Lyrics such as, 'If you want beef, then bring all your rookies' explicitly discuss street battles and encourage impressionable youth to engage in such behaviours. It's even going to the point where many of the group's concerts have been cancelled due to police intervention, further seen with the banning of rap music at the 2022 Easter Show due to the fatal stabbing the year before.

Maybe I was slightly biassed in disagreeing with all this backlash due to enjoying the music myself. Shocking, I know. But after watching the group's documentary 'One Four: Against All Odds', my views were soon rationalised. The group coming from Mount Druitt, a notorious crime area, the art of making music rather deterred these young people from the harsh realities of their environment and sheltered them from the life of crime their society had thrust upon them from such a young age.

Seeing their music in this light, we can see how the group used their rap skills to paint a raw and honest picture of what it's like to live in housing commission, where in these areas, violence is a means of survival. You have to prove yourself in order to not become a target. Being young Samoan boys that they were their childhoods were overrun with constant police profiling.

And almost all of us here could agree this would make anyone angry. Hence, this is what's reflected in their music. But the media takes this anger and sensationalises it into associating a sense of panic and hysteria with drill and rap culture. And for one false case characterises Sydney as overrun with gang violence, particularly incited by Islander or Samoan individuals.

So, let's ask ourselves, is their music truly inciting violence? Or rather, are we as a society just scared by the brutal realities of what it's like to live in these poorer and stigmatised communities? The relationship between music and violence is skewed in this way, with the media and police sparking fear in individuals. But rather, our fear should really be channelled elsewhere when we consider the racial implications of police's ongoing pursuits.

This level of scrutiny has never before been seen in Australia and is highly disproportionate to other musical acts. Acts that are predominantly white artists. If we think back to the integration of rock and roll during the '50s and '60s, which my pop himself would have definitely listened to, we saw this similar trend occur. Initially, it was seen as a threat to social order, which supposedly incited juvenile delinquency, but was rather only heightened with its origins in African American musical tradition, who use their music to channel their anger into something impactful, something that could transcend generations rather than just incite violence.

However, the same cannot be said for my pop because his rock 'n' roll dance moves may come across as violent because they are absolutely criminal. But, regardless, the era's socio-political changes, including the civil rights movement, were significant factors in youth rebellion. The art of making music was an outlet for exploring these broader societal shifts rather than the cause itself.

So, we can see that when the media finds the smallest glimmer of hope for these communities, it manipulates it and quashes it in order to provoke public outrage. I find this incredibly fitting when, in today's society, we glorify and praise a certain mainstream music which betrays a different form of violence, a form of violence which isn't always picked up on right away.

It is arguably a much more prominent issue in our society today. Let me give you a hint. What do the songs 'U.O.E.N.O', 'Blame It on the Alcohol', and 'Blurred Lines' all have in common? The stark perpetuation of sexual violence, a form of violence that is integrated throughout so much of dominant music culture, with songs being deemed close to symbolic rather than being scrutinised.

Sexual harassment, says white female artists, is still a persistent problem within the industry. And not only that, it is one of the most prevalent crimes in Australia. Yet the media chooses to focus on the alleged gang violence epidemic, which is simply not posing as severe of a threat as sexual assault and domestic violence is. But let me throw it back for a minute to the song 'U.O.E.N.O'. Sorry.

Maybe throw it back is a poor choice of words, but I digress. I had the absolute pleasure of listening to the song by Rocko and Rick Ross a couple of weeks ago, with its lyrics not yet registering with me until I read them more closely, with the artist describing, to quote verbatim, how he 'put a molly all in her champagne'.

'She ain't even know it. I took her home and enjoyed that. She ain't even know it'. Yes, those were the lyrics you heard. Correct. What really struck me the most was that these lyrics had to go through an excessive amount of producers and managers, yet nobody even questioned it. These songs, which so casually glorified date rape and sexual assault, make exerting violence over women justifiable to men.

And not only that, the men in the industry itself feel an obligation to write these songs in order to obtain fame and popularity. 'U.O.E.N.O' epitomises how these mainstream rap artists can so easily integrate this form of violence into their music. Yet when a group such as One Four tries to present a raw picture of their community and--

[bell rings]

--individual struggles, they're seen as violent, and they're so quickly demonised.

With songs like this, the current push in our own nation against sexual assault is rendered powerless, as this first requires confronting these misogynist narratives in music, narratives which are merely counteracting any proposed government initiatives. It's only exacerbated through the proliferation of streaming services, which use these echo chambers to create a loop amongst listeners who are seen consuming even the smallest fraction of this music.

In this way, nothing changes. And artists like One Four are de-platformed to the point where they no longer receive funding or support. So, to combat such a systemic issue, we must holistically first interrogate our own consumption habits and media literacy as we have the power to shape cultural norms and influence industry practices. Just like how One Four began through a local recording studio, ensuring more of these programs are established helps these artists have opportunities without the fear of censorship.

Further, we must advocate for fair and equitable law enforcement for all artists, particularly those from marginalised backgrounds, just to counteract the blatantly contradictory police actions in music intervention. Industry stakeholders must be mandated to take responsibility for the content they distribute, with bodies reviewing music to ensure no genre is unfairly ostracised. But there are other, many smaller preventative measures that we can take.

We can, first and foremost, moderate our music platforms and content to filter out music that we deem too violent or overtly sexualised, which I know I do in a heartbeat when I listen to my eponymously named rap mix on Spotify. Parents can opt for more respectful music content for their children, even using child logins for platforms like YouTube.

However, this still doesn't prevent songs like 'U.O.E.N.O' from slipping under the radar and putting in lyrics. So, once again, it is up to us and our own music autonomy to know the content we're engaging with and consuming. So, after all that, I still don't think I can convince my pop to change the radio station back to Kiss over Smooth FM.

And the same is to apply to most of you in regards--

[bell rings]

--to changing others' values and music morality. Morality which has been entrenched in society for such a long time. But if we have a more receptive approach to rap culture, we can see how music and violence are not damaging forces together but a relationship which often becomes misconstrued and reveals parts of society most are afraid to discuss.

If we see it in this light, we can shift music back to what it is built upon-- a vessel for community, for empowerment, and for self-expression. Thank you.

[applause]

EESA KHALED: Thank you, Olivia. Our fourth speaker is Johnny Stamiris from Prairiewood High School. The subject of Johnny's speech is 'A fair go'. Please welcome Johnny.

[applause]

JOHNNY STAMIRIS: We are Australians, and our national identity is a unique one. We live in a society where a plethora of experiences make our nation great, and a set of fundamental values are shared across the board. Amongst the likes of hard work and acceptance sits the fair go. It's one principle that we've heard all around us from our parliaments, our national anthem and most importantly, in our schools.

The idea that in Australia, no matter your background or standing, you are afforded a fair go and equal access to opportunity and success, particularly in the field of education, makes this place a welcome home for many. And yet, even though the fair go is in everything Australian, it is only a facade. Beautiful in theory, largely non-existent in reality.

And there's no better place to observe this than in public education. Public education is the best education that money can't buy, right? But we are one of Earth's most developed nations and still oversee a stark divide between the resources made available to our public schools and students in non-government sectors. I proudly attend a public school, one in a lower socioeconomic area, and it's clear that the divide here has severe ramifications.

Whilst it's common knowledge that private schooling may afford a child greater materials or facilities, it's still not grounds enough to justify the state and federal government's continued disproportionate funding of private schools, especially given the economic climate that we find ourselves in. Instead of the fair go, what we're seeing is schools charging phenomenal fees and continue to receive extensive, oftentimes equal amounts of government funding.

As schools in the public sector who are in critical states and don't have hot water or proper chairs. Instead, what we're seeing is our governments supposedly believing in fair goes. The Australian schooling system is funded on a recurrent basis by our governments to help meet the SRS or School Resource Standard. This is the minimum amount of money that a school needs to operate.

Governments approach school funding by considering how much a school needs as an individual to fulfil its obligations to students and communities. And crucially, when it comes to ascertaining private funding, the government considers how high tuition payments are in private schools from parents. So, under this idea, if a school receives high tuition payments from parents, the government should help accordingly.

Realistically, however, this is far from the case. This year, for example, the Commonwealth funded education for $29 billion and of this 29, $18 billion is going to non-government schools, leaving public schools almost two-thirds behind their counterparts. Where is the fairness in this system, where a school like mine that depends entirely on government funding is financially an eternity behind its private counterparts?

The biggest problem seen in the fair go, however, is in the demographics at hand. Lower socioeconomic communities and schools that service them, just like mine, are typically composed of migrant background individuals whose second language is English. This means that our SRS looks a bit different from many other schools. Schools like mine require comprehensive learning resources. Linguistically diverse educators. Equipped facilities, for example.

Maybe the best way to put it, is that by investing into the public education in communities like these, it is value-added. Divisions and prejudices that push public schoolers out of the system stand in sharp contrast to systems in the private and independent system, whose consistent income enables development that keeps kids in school, like building big rugby pitches or fencing centres.

My school and others like it are not asking for rowing. We are just asking for enough laptops to support our student population or improved and actually safe facilities. Public school academic performances are also significantly hindered by this lapse in education, leading to severe disparities in uni admissions. So, where is the needs-based system now? Where is the fair go?

It's time that we recognise that public education is actually pretty important in Australia. And to have these conversations at a parliamentary level because, after all, we need to ensure that we have a fair go in our democracy, too. Fair go means seeing public schoolers equipped to excel. It means having extracurricular and scholarships teachers. It means having individuals being pushed into successful paths.

It's having opportunities just like these for so many kids, just like me. They change lives. The need for action, for more advocating for public schools, is heightened when we consider some individual cases of disproportionate funding. A prominent boys' private school on the North Shore, for example, last year received $107 million in income, with about $14 million of this coming from the government.

When we consider and realise that this $14 million is about the same amount that a South West Sydney public school, just like mine, receives in a year and must make do with the disparity, it becomes apparent. Another prestigious girls' private school receives $50,000 in tuition fees per girl, which means that from an average Year 12 class of about 24 kids, this school makes $1.2 million but continues to receive government funding despite meeting their school resource standard well ahead of others.

The question, however, and most importantly, is, 'Where is this money actually going?' How often do we see schools like these plastered across the news for promoting toxic workspaces? Should we be sending this money in blindly as per the status quo? Where has this actually even--

[bell rings]

--gotten us? Across Sydney, this is the reality for countless educational institutions and low-SES schools like mine are way at the tail end.

The fact that in Australia today, there are students who are given greater opportunities at success, which leads to different doors opening for them later on as a result of public money's distribution, speaks volumes and really highlights how this 'fair go' that we always talk about, has been totally compromised. It also undoes the good work of institutions like the Harding Miller Foundation, which champion equal opportunity access.

Wide level advocating for funding reform is necessary since it leads to not only greater learning outcomes for students, but also a better approach to equity in general. Federally, there is zero being done to address or rectify this issue. Closer to home, though, we have had some wins. Only a few days ago, the state government, in the recent budget, announced $1.5 billion for public school funding facilities and another half a billion to help boost the SRS from 72% to 75%.

This is still nowhere near the 100% needed to fund and operate a public school. This is the minimum requirement, remember, but it's proof that advocating for these kinds of changes does result in improvement. By engaging in discourse about this issue and working closely with our legislators, with national youth advisory groups that provide a young people's perspective on this issue firsthand and listening to the cause of the principals' network or the Teachers Federation, we're able to ensure that our public schools are fairly funded and operate successfully.

Perhaps when we have adequate technology or enough classrooms, we'll be truly able to say that we're proudly public because right now, we're actually left with quite little to show for it. Otherwise, by continuing the status quo, we risk perpetuating a cycle that locks children out of opportunities across our state and our country. So, by amplifying voices that--

[bell rings]

--challenge the current--

[bell rings]

--we can achieve further equity.

Our nation is built on the fair go. It is who we are. So, to give students in our public schools the same opportunities that are afforded to others must be a priority for us. Not just for today but for future generations too. What we see now is an iniquitous system. That means we have zero faith in our public school students and aren't equipping them for success.

We must do this. It is who we are. After all, there is nothing more Australian than just giving someone a fighting chance, than giving them a fair go. Thank you.

[applause]

EESA KHALED: Thank you, Johnny. Our fifth speaker is Jenny Xu. Jenny attends Pymble Ladies' College, and the subject of her speech is 'More than a mug'. Please welcome Jenny.

[applause]

JENNY XU: My sister is 12 years older than me. And aside from my wardrobe of 2000 hand-me-downs, our age gap definitely has its perks. From as far back as I can remember, I've been the willing recipient of all my sister's unwanted corporate branded oddities from work events. My parents like to joke that by the time I was in Year 7, I was a better representative for her company than she was, with a full set of water bottles, hoodies and tote bags from the office.

Most recently, I came home to find a mug sitting on my desk with the words 'diversity, equity and inclusion' emblazoned in bright red lettering. Being an avid mug collector, I didn't think much of it until my sister explained where it had come from-- a diversity, equity and inclusion or 'DEI' workshop where she and her fellow employees were given a day off to learn the ABCs of workplace diversity.

Hearing this, I was somewhat confused. Having been fortunate enough to grow up in an incredibly diverse and inclusive school and community, I had never realised that diversity was something that you could pay to learn. After all, my own experience growing up in a diverse community seemed to suggest that diversity wasn't something to brainstorm the importance of in a workshop but rather something to be experienced in the playground and in the classroom.

Now, of course, workplace interactions are far more complex than playground politics. But does the complexity of these interactions make diversity, inclusivity, and equity harder to teach? The original purpose of DEI training in the 1960s was not to encourage diversity so much as to help an overwhelmingly white and male workforce adjust to integrated offices. One of the most prevalent forms of early DEI training was for employers to provide a list of do's and don'ts for the workplace as if encouraging diversity were as simple as the ingredients in a recipe.

Although ever since DEI training has been known by many names, think sensitivity training and anti-bias programs, its purpose and impact has remained virtually the same. In the past, DEI training was largely ineffective due to its surface-level approach and usually bred resentment amongst employees who felt unfairly blamed. In the 21st century, the diversity and inclusion training industry experienced growth due to changing social attitudes and increased scrutiny on the cultures of major companies.

And in 2020 and 2021, at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, the DEI industry exploded, and the global market expanded to more than $4 billion. It was during this time that companies became more concerned that a lack of diversity would affect their profits or draw away shareholders. But for many of them, the solution to accountability wasn't to actually make their workspaces more equal, inclusive and diverse but rather to appear that way.

This prompted a wave of performative change, with many companies using DEI workshops as a way to push the responsibility to cultivate a diverse workspace solely onto the shoulders of their employees. And as for the companies that did genuinely try to improve their work environment through DEI training, it simply wasn't enough. This is partly because most DEI programs actually do very little to change the attitudes and behaviours of employees.

And that's because inclusivity is an interpersonal skill that needs to be practised and implemented. Truly effective change also comes from prolonged efforts, not just a one-hour mandatory training session at the beginning of each year. But stopping at interpersonal skills isn't enough either because discrimination isn't just an interpersonal issue. It's also a structural and institutional issue. The worst effects of discrimination usually don't come from peers but rather are the result of an organisation that has bias ingrained within its practices and within the mindsets of its senior employees, the employees who hold the power and, therefore, the ability to influence its culture.

So, given these challenges, how can we improve DEI training and actually make a dent in issues such as diversity and inclusivity? The good news is that now, more than ever, employees are more aware and concerned about the issue of diversity and inclusion. But individual awareness doesn't necessarily translate to institutional action. And so talented employees who feel disenfranchised and discriminated against in the workplace won't stay or succeed.

One method to improve DEI training is to diversify the approach. Companies need to stop treating DEI training as a silver bullet and experiment with different types of programs that help to foster a more ideal and inclusive work environment. This might look like reviewing hiring practices, using technology to identify and reduce bias, and looking for different DEI programs tailored for their employees.

However, because things like workplace culture are such abstract and personal concepts, it's also important that we find ways to determine the impact of these programs once they've been implemented. Collecting data can help companies understand just how effective their programs are or how employees are responding to them. Whilst most organisations track diversity through recruitment data, it's also important to collect data on the attitudes and behaviours of current employees that are undergoing diversity training and improve based on feedback.

Tiffany Jana, founder of DEI training company TMI, is working to develop a technology called 'Loop', which aims to assess and report on an--

[bell rings]

--organisation's culture and to identify inclusion gaps. But let's not forget the real purpose of DEI programs: to foster a more inclusive and safe workplace, and that requires action. Perhaps companies might benefit from taking a page out of the books of primary school educators because if children can learn and understand the importance and straightforwardness of diversity, then adults should be able to as well.

My experience as a child growing up in a diverse community taught me that inclusivity, acceptance and diversity is best taught in an environment that is actually diverse. And so, when corporate employees are only surrounded by people who resemble themselves, there's no time to practise or to implement inclusivity. Companies need to impose consequences upon those that breach workplace policies surrounding diversity and inclusion.

They need to foster a safe and open company culture so that people feel comfortable reporting instances of discrimination. And finally, they need to create mentorship programs so that when senior positions open up, there are people from underrepresented groups ready to fill them. All of these solutions will take time, but they're not too difficult to implement. Many senior employees and businesses are already beginning to recognise the limitations of DEI training and are interested in making it better.

I hope that by the time I enter the workplace, my peers and I will leave DEI workshops with more than a mug. I hope that we'll leave with a better knowledge of the intricacies of the problem, a stronger understanding of how we can help, and a deeper confidence that management has our backs. I hope that we leave ready to make the world a more inclusive, diverse and equitable place. Thank you.

[applause]

EESA KHALED: Thank you, Jenny. Our final speaker today is Sophia Markham from Armidale Secondary College. The subject of Sophia's speech is 'Now more than ever'. Please welcome Sophia Markham.

[applause]

SOPHIA MARKHAM: What do you want to be when you grow up? Universally, it's a question that I, like many of you, have been asked at least 400 times. And to counter that, I've probably given 400 different answers. Teacher. Doctor. Lawyer. The next Taylor Swift. And from my childhood idols to the dolls sitting in their Barbie house, I truly believed that I could be whatever I wanted to be.

That was until the age of 12, in which my own teacher told me that all I could ever be was Aboriginal. First Nations, Indigenous, Aboriginal. Before that day, I had never given much consideration to the word nor the importance and vitality the culture had regarding my identity. See, I knew that it was why my eyes and hair were darker than most of my classmates.

Why I loved learning about the Dreamtime and typically knew more than my classmates. So, imagine my shock when I came to realise that a single word would allow Australians who will never even meet me to categorise and dictate the person that I should become. That is probably why when I think of the word reconciliation, I cannot be optimistic enough right now to see an Australia where culture, pride and harmony exist simultaneously without compromise or sacrifice.

But that's also why I believe that now more than ever has been chosen as a theme for Reconciliation Week in 2024. Perhaps it was also because 9.5 million Australians couldn't quite grasp the institutional challenges faced by First Nations people. Perhaps it was chosen after 13 YARN saw a 108% increase in calls during the referendum period. But in my heart, I hope it's for all the Koori kids sitting in classrooms around the country being told that one word will define them.

So, with this in mind, we know that reconciliation is important now more than ever. But why, at this point in time? We've come a long way since the 1967 referendum. We've ended 6 decades of the forced removal of First Nations youth, and we are slowly gaining land rights. But still, I can't help but consider Stan Grant's 'Racism is destroying the Australian dream.'

For me, the concept of the Australian dream was previously only thrown around as an exhibitionist term by media sources, and it was the first time that I'd been forced to consider what the Australian dream meant to me. My Year 11 English class decided that the Australian dream held many materialistic qualities: home ownership, financial stability, healthy, happy families. And while I agreed with these, the idea of an Australian dream felt so out of reach from me.

Because how can I grasp the Australian dream when cultural pride is an oxymoron? When 60,000 years of dreaming was deemed irrelevant, when my culture decides that I'm twice as likely to die by suicide by the age of 44 compared to my non-Indigenous schoolmates? The current Australian dream has been built on a pillar of 270 years of heartache, loss and displacement.

To reconcile our nation is to seek the Australian dream. To create the Australian dream, our nation as a collective must reconcile now more than ever. And I understand that many of you are thinking there's 2 weeks dedicated to my culture and endless legislation. But to challenge that, I ask you this. Can you name another culture in which you are more likely to be incarcerated than to finish your formal high school education?

Can we claim to be reconciled when, as a First Nations person, I'm 34 times more likely to be hospitalised for domestic violence incidents than other Australians? The thing is, we as a nation know the steps that need to be taken to reconcile what can be a beautiful nation. We know how to create an accessible Australian dream, and despite what many people believe reconciliation is, blame no longer holds a place in this process.

Instead, we use our knowledge of the retrospective, and we move forward. We hear the concerns of the 9.5 million who told us 'No', and we educate them on why our voice needs to be heard. Just as I am here to do today. And then we make change. Not the current approach of legislation, funding reports, programs, legislation, funding reports, programs, but a solution formed on the backing and research of academics, elders and politicians who, if nothing else, agree that just 3 words can reconcile Australia.

Voice. From Armidale to Arnhem Land, Barangaroo to Bundaburra, let our 250 nations be connected--

[bell rings]

--by hope for a reconciled tomorrow on a legislative level. Let the stories of the loud, those with the courage to slam open the doors of parliament, represent the quieter stories, the girl being the first in her family to go to university, the boy teaching the fly containing methods that his forefathers have used for 60,000 years, the thousands wanting to break cycles of intergenerational trauma.

Secondly, treaty. The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow. Give us the power to flourish and let our culture, our guidance, be a gift to this beautiful land of droughts and flooding rains. And finally, truth-telling. The way that each and every one of us on a daily basis can contribute to reconciliation. We stop weaponising the word Aboriginal and let us create our own unique individual narratives that reject the harmful rhetoric of the past 2 centuries.

Because yes, I am Aboriginal. I'm a proud Kamilaroi woman living on Anaiwan lands in northern NSW. But I am also a daughter, a sister, a friend. I'm passionate about dance and making a change in other people's lives. Now more than ever, I'm inspired to become part of the solution in creating a reconciled Australia, which is a venture I hope you will all join me on.

But perhaps more importantly, now more than ever, I will be whatever and whoever I choose to be because of my culture, not in spite of it. I will make my 12-year-old--

[bell rings]

--self proud.

[bell rings]

Thank you.

[applause]

EESA KHALED: That concludes the prepared section. The finalists will now leave the auditorium and will return after morning tea to give their 3-minute impromptu speeches. Each finalist will speak on the same subject after a 3-minute preparation time.

LILITH DARTNELL: We are now ready for the impromptu section. Finalists will speak in the same order as they did for the prepared speeches. There will be a warning bell at 2 minutes and 2 bells at 3 minutes. A continuous bell will be run at 3.5 minutes if the speaker exceeds the maximum time by more than 30 seconds. The subject for the impromptu section is 'Back to the beginning'.

Please welcome Murphy Xi.

[applause]

MURPHY XI: There are times where I'd lose myself in the night sky. Mesmerised by the deep unknown. There are times where I'd throw my arms up in the air as if I was a conductor of Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'. Nowadays, these moments come few and far between. I seem to run from it. I seem so afraid of empty space. See, when we were children, we were afraid of the dark. Or, more specifically, what was inside of the dark? Terrifying monsters. Man-eating snakes. Huge spiders. Now, ironically, we're more scared of what isn't there. The awkward silences, the terrifying emptiness, the suffocating abyss. Our whole lives, we try to escape this inescapable fact. We fill our lives with so many distractions, incessant social media accounts, meticulously crafted social media profile pictures.

But what if we were to go back to the beginning? What if we were to ignore all of these distractions? This is exactly what the existentialism movement did in the 20th century. Born of the angst of modernism, where people were becoming increasingly contrived of higher purpose and meaning. People wanted to go to the fundamental roots of life. It asks us the painfully simple, primitive but big questions.

What is it to have meaning? How does one find purpose in their life? Do we have free will? One such person who tried to rationalise his own mortality was Ernest Becker in his now seminal work, 'The Denial of Death'. In this book, he wrote, 'The world places a trembling animal at the mercy of the cosmos and the problem of the meaning of it.' In other words, we are, as humans--

[bell rings]

--vulnerable and subject to the inescapable whim of some supernatural force. Well, Ernest Becker does offer us a solution. He says that the healthy person, the true individual, the self-realised soul, is one who has transcended himself. When was the last time you went for a night drive? A walk down the park?

Stargazing? It's obviously hard to confront the darkness, to surrender ourselves to the suffocating emptiness: to go back to the beginning is to be human. To be exposed and vulnerable to the effects of what the universe does to us. But I suppose there is some bittersweetness in it. That is what is. So, that's what is to be human.

To revel in the emptiness. To suffocate with our emotions.

[bell rings]

Thank you.

[applause]

LILITH DARTNELL: Please welcome Violet FitzSimons.

[applause]

VIOLET FITZSIMONS: When I got my first part-time job, my parents had to go back to the beginning on the basis of common sense. What to purchase and not what not to purchase. The fact that I probably shouldn't be buying 7 chocolate bars every week for every day of the week. And these lessons, I'll admit, were totally warranted. I'm a teenager with poor impulse control, and I deserve a bit of scolding every now and again.

But what's alarmed me in living in a rural area is how this parental concern is being directed towards fully grown women in Australia. Going back to the beginning, as though they're teenagers, as they're lectured on how to handle their finances. This had been particularly aggravated by a recent issue splashed across news headlines about pyramid schemes in rural Australia.

One such pyramid scheme, called 'rural freedom', has overtaken the country, with thousands of women falling prey to what is essentially a scam. The founder, Kylie Stephenson, can be seen dancing on TikTok wearing a cowboy hat, promising that if you just sell her water diffuser, you can earn up to $20,000 a month. This issue seems inconceivable. How on earth could women be so gullible as to fall prey to invest tens of thousands of dollars in this scheme and never get back?

But the true question we should be asking is why are they being so gullible? We need to take it back to the beginning and see why that desperation for extra finance is there in rural Australia. The fact of the matter is, financial independence for rural women is a huge issue, and it currently just doesn't exist enough as it should in rural areas.

The Institute of Applied Social Sciences and Economics in Melbourne recently released a study that showed financial autonomy in rural areas is at an all-time low for women in contrast with urban areas. Women need that extra finances away from their marriages. It's just a fact, in country areas that marriage happens earlier, that loans are taken on earlier, that cars are purchased earlier. Partners are intrinsically financially interwoven, and this is terrifying.

It takes women back to the beginning, that primal instinct of needing an ability to escape if something were to go wrong. Women need the ability financially to flee.

[bell rings]

So, the idea of having that extra cash by selling a water diffuser outside of the 9 to 5 in which they can raise their kids and post on social media is really, really enticing for rural women.

Now, when we address this issue, I really do think we need to go back to the beginning. The fact that we've had so much outrage upon discovering these pyramid schemes and their impact is great, but if we want to stop rural women from falling prey to these scams, we need to go back to the beginning of Australian culture surrounding finances and have those tricky discussions early on.

We need to talk about what financial literacy is. We need our government to support programs that teach women from a young age how to handle their finances, how to find jobs outside of the 9 to 5 that work for them in rurally isolated areas. The 'We Can' movement currently does this in Australia, helping regional women to find jobs outside the 9 to 5--

[bell rings]

--in rural areas.

We need to put our support behind that. We need to go back to the beginning of this issue to solve this lack of discussion around finances and what it's caused. But we don't need to go back to the beginning of these women's lives and treat them like they're teenagers with their first part-time job saving their pocket money for a chocolate bar.

They are women who deserve to be educated, not girls to be condescended to when it comes to their finances and the very livelihood of their families and their ability to escape dangerous situations. Thank you.

[applause]

LILITH DARTNELL: Please welcome Olivia Wright.

[applause]

OLIVIA WRIGHT: Empty hallways. Broken stairs. Flickering lights may seem like simply a work of dystopian fiction and may seem a bit extreme. However, it's the reality for many eating disorder wards in Australia. Going back to the beginning of Year 7, I know this may seem a long time ago for many, I, too, was in that ward. I, too, suffered alongside many other victims of eating disorders and felt the harmful and ineffective effects of doctors and nurses in the health care system.

I know you've probably heard millions of speeches here today about eating disorders and how prevalent and how common they are. But I really wanted to hone in on an issue that many people don't talk about and an eating disorder that isn't actually recognised by Australian doctors and the nation itself. Orthorexia is the unhealthy compulsion and fixation over healthy behaviours.

And I know, ironic, but it is, goes to a point where it becomes unhealthy to fixate on healthy things. And currently, in the status quo, the DSM 5, which is the current protocol for mental health patients, doesn't actually address orthorexia as a mental illness. And as a result, many adolescents fly under the radar and suffer with this issue.

If we go back to the beginning of Australian culture, we can see that it's built upon this health and wellness kick. We can see in modern times that many influencers focus on this and make it their whole personality, and as a result, it becomes inevitable that people like adolescents and us suffer with this issue. Going back to the beginning of Year 7, we're taught from PDHPE, even back to primary school with Healthy Harold, about the healthy eating pyramid and all foods in moderation.

Yet when we see these foods in bright, glowing red letters, we feel demonised. We feel that we cannot eat these foods without being crucified. So, the current issue is that current methods are not working to treat this issue. I've seen the effects of CBT cognitive behaviour therapy, which is effective. I can attest to with other more extreme cases, yet it focuses on these more maladaptive behaviours and focuses on the more widespread and--

[bell rings]

--desensitised issues that, like anorexia and the like that are so, you know, prevalent in the media, and that we almost glorify in a way we can see that it's ineffective.

And I've seen the effects, and it's caused much harm to my family, unwarranted harms, my family, which creates this self-perpetuating loop amongst people who are suffering. And we feel like the perpetrator. We feel like the victim. We can see that as a result, going back to the beginning of Year 7 me, this issue shouldn't have been an issue in the first place.

I shouldn't have been succumb to this insanely totalitarian and Orwellian type of ward where patients feel like the perpetrators. They feel like they've done something wrong. So, to combat such a systemic issue, we need to think about our own response to eating disorders and recognise the symptoms before it's too late. We need to address the culture surrounding healthy behaviours, and we need to think about what Australia is currently doing to combat it, which, as a result, isn't a lot.

We can see adolescents with extreme pressures going to academically selective schools and other aspects that are influencing them, but--

[bell rings]

--this issue is only becoming more prevalent by the day. So, if I go back to the beginning of Year 7 me, I would address these issues, and I would listen to my family. I would heed their advice and I would know that it's going to get better.

It's going to get better if I take my own autonomy back, and I know the symptoms, I know the signs, and I can help other individuals. Thank you.

[applause]

LILITH DARTNELL: Please welcome Johnny Stamiris.

[applause]

JOHNNY STAMIRIS: At family events, I often find myself playing the role of the translator. You see, on one side, there's my grandparents and other members of our family that immigrated here from Greece about 60 years ago and never learned English. They formed strong cultural hubs and really had no real need to assimilate in the more conventional manner that one would assume.

On the other, there is my cousins and other members of my family around my age. There is very little need for Greek in our lives in their view in particular. And so there is a sharp disconnect. There is a chasm almost in the ability to communicate between one generation and the other.

For a country as diverse as Australia, it is quite puzzling that we are viewing native language attrition as such a pervasive and all-encompassing issue. If anything, it would be easy to assume that as a nation that is so multicultural, so privileged to be so diverse, we should, in fact, be uplifting and celebrating the many tongues and languages and dialects of people who have come here seeking a better life and contributing to our country.

Instead, though, what we've observed is this mass cultural loss which, when combined with other rapid, long-lasting neo-colonialist approaches towards languages and how we integrate them, particularly in education and our wider communities, there is a sharp disparity that arises. For many individuals, particularly of the generation like Generation Z and Gen Alpha, we've seen sharp declines in cognitive abilities, sharp declines in reading capacities, and so this has only been heightened when we consider that when you add this on top of the native language loss that has been observed right in the household, back to the beginning of when these individuals are learning to interact with others, the problem becomes clear.

The way forward with this is quite straightforward. The majority of individuals that actually--

[bell rings]

--lose their native language over, sorry, experienced this loss right at the beginning of their familiarisation with the world around them. Oftentimes, those who lost their native language and defaulted to English learned so because of their entrance into the education system in schools where they had to interact with others using the common ground of the English language.

Although this is a great thing-- it has bridged together connections-- it has resulted in a mass loss of the ability to communicate, particularly from one generation of individuals who have a wealth of knowledge to share with us all the way down to another generation who amidst the current global, sorry, amidst the current global climate, are observing a mass loss of individuality and drop in diversity.

It's important for us to realise that in order to continue and safeguard our native languages, we must continue the community language programs--

[bell rings]

--that many schools, particularly in multicultural, diverse areas such as my own, pioneered in primary school. By continuing these on, perhaps only then will we be able to bridge this chasm between the generations to ensure that our native languages continue on, and to ensure, just maybe, that those big boards that say 'Welcome' in every language that we see in the city, we could actually read those one day instead of just taking a photo of them. Thank you.

[applause]

LILITH DARTNELL: Please welcome Jenny Xu.

[applause]

JENNY XU: Recently, my older cousin became pregnant with a little boy, and I was assigned the task of helping her come up with names for the baby. Going through the process of choosing between Austen and James and William really took me back to the beginning of my own life. It made me think about the significance of our names. Names are so, one of the most important parts of the beginning of someone's life.

They're a signifier of identity and culture and so, they're incredibly important. Our names tie us to the past, but our names tie us to the past and our beginnings. But they also shape our experience in the present. So, given that names are so important, why do people ever decide to change them? Data collected by a variety of sociologists and experts has suggested that the people who changed their names the most are immigrants and people of colour.

The reason why this occurs is because immigrants feel the need to avoid discrimination and help, helping to adopt a more Western name helps them to avoid things such as discrimination. But immigrants shouldn't have to feel the need to change their names or lose a central part of the aspect of their identity that was given to them back at the beginning of their life in order to feel the need to better assimilate or to avoid discrimination.

So, given that so many people feel the pressure to change their names due to these societal pressures surrounding missing out on opportunities and facing discrimination, what can we do to help this issue? Well, most of these solutions centre around things that we, as individuals, can do. Although many people in the past have faced pressures to change their name and anglicised and lose aspects of their identity, it's up to us to help maintain these aspects of both our own identity, as well as to respect the aspects of others. For example, back at the beginning of my life, when I immigrated to Australia, my name was anglicised, and as a result I felt a disconnection to my Chinese culture and heritage and background. However, in Australia, I felt that through the warm efforts of people who have attempted to remember and people who have encouraged--

[bell rings]

me to remember my own history and to help and teach through teaching people how to pronounce my name correctly I felt that I've somewhat gained this connection back. So, in the end, the solution to this problem isn't to go back to the beginning and to completely erase or anglicise our names, but rather to work together in order to both respect our own names as well as the names of other people. Thank you.

[applause]

LILITH DARTNELL: Please welcome Sophia Markham.

[applause]

SOPHIA MARKHAM: For years now, Australia has been living through a pandemic. We have equipped ourselves with masks and vaccinated ourselves to protect ourselves from the outside world. And now there's probably a pandemic that you're thinking about that covered headlines internationally, nationally, for months and months on end. That in 2020 alone took 909 lives. That's not the pandemic that I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the pandemic that, in 2020, that same year cost 3133 lives. Suicide. We equipped ourselves with masks, deciding that it wasn't our problem. We vaccinated ourselves with the words, 'It will never affect me'. But for people like me, of that 3100, despite making only 28% of the population, regional Australia accounted for 40% of that 3100. Those are my neighbours, my classmates, my friends, my family.

And for those of us left behind, we have no choice but to ask ourselves, 'Why?' Why did they not reach out for help? And to try and answer that question I'm taking you on a journey 13.5 hours away to Tibooburra, with a population of 134 people. But mental illness and alcohol abuse are prevalent issues in their society.

Within there, perhaps when Rural Aid donated one million bales of hay to that area, the best thing they did was have conversations with the farmers. They made sure that mental health care truly took things back to the beginning before--

[bell rings]

--substance abuse and mental illness have the ability to become prevalent in that society. And yet, we still stand here and watch these programs fail to receive government support.

You look at the program 'Are you bogged mate?' - a preventative program rather than a reactive approach, produces a proactive approach. Simply asking farmers, 'Are you bogged, mate?' that reject the clinical psychology mechanisms that we understand do not work. By their approach, they ensure that farmers understand the connectedness and the importance of connectedness, and they understand the power of having a conversation.

That mental health treatment in regional areas does not work the way it does in metropolitan areas. A clinical approach does not work.

[bell rings]

So, don't be afraid to take things back to the beginning, asking, 'Are you bogged, mate?' Because you never know. It might just save a life. Thank you.

[applause]

LILITH DARTNELL: I would like to call on Hamaja Dave to announce the winner of the Plain English Speaking Award for 2024.

[applause]

HIMAJA DAVE: Hello, everyone, and thank you again for all the speakers. Can we give them another round of applause?

[applause]

And to the audience here for being so insightful and engaging and, you know, we had a great time on the adjudicator panel today, listening to everyone's very diverse opinions and hearing what our young people have to say about the world around them. So, thank you so much for that. The speeches today were quite interesting because they covered a wide range of different topic areas.

We liked that a lot of the speakers provided their personal input. They showed us who they are and why the topics that are relevant to them are important within the context of their own environments. So, that was really special to see. What we found to be the best showcased in the speeches today was a sense of personhood from the speakers, but also a relevance to a topic.

There was an issue in each of the speeches, especially the better half of the speeches, where we could see that there was some concrete problem that they were trying to solve and a conclusion that systematically stepped us through how we were going to solve that problem at an audience, individual level, but also at a wider society level. And that was really important because oftentimes, the topics that we talk about are so complex that it's really difficult to get into the nitty-gritty and see how we, as individuals, can really make a difference. So, that was really fantastic to see as well. The prepared speeches were quite interesting, and we also had a little bit of feedback for all the speakers, and that would be to remember that your audience wants to engage with you on an interpersonal level but also on that logical level.

So, if you are going to be talking about some very specific or complex issues, you want to make sure that you give them something that they can take away, that they can step away from, think about on the train ride home and decide, you know, this is what I'm going to do about this problem, or this speaker really stood out to me today, and I want to think about maybe sending an email to my local MP or talking to my friends and family about it.

Because of that, we found that there was quite a lot to do for speakers in the impromptu. The impromptu was interesting because we saw speakers use a topic 'Back to the beginning' in different aspects, and we saw that there was quite a philosophical argument to be made about a lot of the impromptu speeches. This was fantastic because it really showed us that speakers thought deeply about what they were thinking about in the moment that they were writing that speech. We wanted to see that speakers had a wide exposure to the topics and issues around them, and they were able to grasp at those issues in a very short time frame to give us something more specifically their personal take on that problem. So, that was great to see as well. Some feedback for the impromptu would be that it's all right for us to be using topics that we've heard about in dominant discourse, but we want to make sure that, you know, you're providing your personal take on that topic, right? Oftentimes, you know, we're hearing stuff about wars and climate change, but we want to hear about what you specifically think about wars and climate change.

So, that was really important. And, of course, you know, bringing it back to the topic. So, for that reason, our winner today was able to show us that holistic approach, but then also show us through both of their impromptu and prepared speeches that it was important to take a granular approach and to think about these important issues from her perspective.

For that reason, our winner today is Violet FitzSimons.

[applause]