Video transcript
Plain English Speaking Award 2025 - NSW State Final

[intro music]

JUSTINE CLARKE: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the NSW Teachers Federation Conference Centre for the state final of the NSW Plain English Speaking Award for 2025. My name is Justine Clarke, and I am the Speaking Competitions Officer for the Department of Education.

I'll begin by acknowledging the ongoing custodians of the land on which we meet today. This is the land of the Gadigal people, and we pay respects to Elders past and present, as ongoing teachers of knowledge, songlines and stories. We strive to ensure every Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander learner in NSW achieves their potential through education.

I'd like to introduce you to our chairperson for today. Harini Murigipudi is from Crestwood High School and was an impressive and passionate speaker in the semifinals of this competition.

Our timekeeper is Eddie Stopic from Tempe High School.

I'll hand over to Harini.

[applause]

HARINI MARIGIPUDI: Thank you, Justine. My name is Harini Murigipudi. I attend Crestwood High School, and it is my great pleasure to be your chairperson for the state final of the Plain English Speaking Award for 2025.

Before we get to our speakers, let me introduce you to the adjudication panel. Our 3 adjudicators for the final today are Sophia-Rose Markham, Lucy Beale and Aman Mohamed.

Sophia-Rose Markham is an accomplished public speaker who attended the Armidale Secondary College. Sophia-Rose was a state finalist in the Plain English Speaking Award in 2024, and a recipient of the prestigious Nanga Mai Award for excellence in public speaking in the same year. She was also the Youth Parliament Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Sophia is currently in her first year of a Bachelor of Secondary Education, specialising in Aboriginal Education at the University of Sydney.

Please welcome Sophia-Rose Markham.

[applause]

Lucy Beale had a successful school career as a public speaker and debater when she attended Wollongong Performing Arts High school. She was a state finalist in the Plain English Speaking Award in 2023 and a member of the Combined High Schools representative squad in 2024. Lucy is studying a Bachelor of Laws and Arts at Australian National University, and is a regular adjudicator on state final panels for the Arts Unit, as well as judging the Plain English Speaking Award National Final in 2024.

Please welcome Lucy Beale.

[applause]

Aman Mohamed graduated from Sydney Boys High School in 2019. He was the runner-up in the prestigious boys public speaking competition, the Lawrence Campbell Award, in 2019 and a member of the Combined High Schools debating squad in the same year. Aman is currently one of the Combined High Schools debating coaches and was a semifinalist at the Australian intervarsity Debating Championships.

He recently attended the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot held in Vienna, where his UNSW team placed first overall out of nearly 400 teams after the initial rounds. Aman outperformed more than 2,500 international students to win third place in the Martin Domke Award for the Best Individual Oralist. Aman is in his final year studying arts and law at UNSW and is one of our most valued adjudicators.

Please welcome the very humble Aman Mohamed.

[applause]

We now come to the prepared section of the competition. Each speaker will speak for 8 minutes on a subject of their own choice. There will be a warning bell at 6 minutes--

[bell ring]

--2 bells at 8 minutes--

[bell ringing]

--and a continuous bell will be rung at 8 and a half minutes.

[bell ringing]

Our first speaker is Poppy Cheek from Presbyterian Ladies College. The subject of Poppy's speech is 'Safety by design'. Please welcome Poppy Cheek.

[applause]

POPPY CHEEK: Thank goodness we live in a world with tracking technology, because without it, my AirPods would be lost forever-- many times over. So would the bag I misplaced in Melbourne 3 times in the same trip, which I only found again because of an AirTag.

For people like me, with zero common sense and shocking object permanence, the Find My app is amazing, the one thing stopping your parents from losing it because you lost it, which can feel like a life and death situation.

But we forget there are actual life and death situations this technology puts people in-- for the women who can't go to the shops without being tracked by the same app we use to find headphones, for the women who can't call the police because they don't know where their partner is hidden an audio recorder.

Anyone can be a victim of domestic violence, regardless of gender. But the statistics show it is overwhelmingly women. A woman is killed by domestic violence every week in Australia. And yet another form of domestic violence on the rise is digital coercive control, which is why we need safety by design in all technology.

According to the NSW crime commission, 1 in 4 people who purchased a GPS tracker last year has a history of domestic violence-- 1 in 4. Those trackers are being concealed in women's cars purses, usually many at a time. Last year, police removed 8 AirTags from the car of a Victorian woman who was experiencing abuse.

And it's only getting worse. Technology-facilitated abuse has risen by 650% in the past 5 years alone in Victoria. You'd think we know what a healthy relationship looks like in Australia. I shouldn't have to reiterate that they're built on trust, equality and consideration.

I, as a young woman, should not have to be scared of what a future partner could do to me. But these statistics say otherwise. And it's because it's hidden that makes digital coercive control so dangerous it traps women and sets a precedent for further abuse, sometimes with fatal consequences.

Advancing GPS tech is facilitating abuse. The companies that make them are facilitating abuse. But technological abuse goes deeper than tracking. There's potential for it in all technology.

Take, for example, a fridge. In one Australian case, an abuser would remotely lock his fridge to control when his partner and children could eat. In another, an abuser would write digital messages on a screen on his partner's fridge, such as 'I'm watching you' to maintain a constant state of surveillance and fear.

Spy pens are also on the rise, with built-in cameras and audio recorders that can be switched on at any time. And it's not like this technology is difficult to come by. One click on Amazon and $30. That's all it takes to ensure a victim can never escape.

So with all this in mind, how do we stop digital coercive control? How can we ensure the safety of thousands suffering under tech-facilitated abuse?

What we need is safety by design in all technology. This comes about in 4 main ways, which I've made into the acronym SAFE.

Firstly, S-- security by default. Security, particularly that concerned with coercive control, needs to be accounted for in all stages of technology manufacturing. This includes features such as secure coding and encryption, regular security updates, and continuous monitoring of systems. Some technologies can also implement signal interference detection, which alerts people of and blocks GPS tracking and Bluetooth surveillance. Potential victims could be notified of coercive behaviour before it's too late.

Next, A-- accountability. We need to ensure that all stakeholders in technologies manufacturing have a clear understanding of their role in maintaining safety. This can be achieved through guidelines and education implemented in companies and would ensure that everyone is held accountable for their role in tech-facilitated abuse.

Next, F-- forensic support. Along with security by default, companies should be responsible for evidence collection in the case of coercive control. This includes features such as his documentation of abuse, data retention and time-stamping. Additionally, it should be required to record the name and serial number of tracking devices and commonly abused technologies when sold to make it easier for law enforcement to identify who owns them.

It goes without saying that all this information would be kept protected, using systems such as those Apple has in place to prevent customer information leakage.

[bell ringing]

Adding on it should be required to have background checks when people buy this kind of technology, and anyone with a history of domestic violence or recent violence should not be allowed to own them.

Finally, E-- enforcement. Coercive control has been a criminal offence in NSW for just about a year, thanks to the work by investigative journalist Jess Hill. But further enforcement is needed. The background checks I mentioned before should be mandatory nationwide to act as a disincentive to abusers. Companies should be regularly monitored to ensure they're properly enacting safety protocols.

But what can we do? Sure, we can educate. We can prioritise digital literacy and identifying coercive situations. But the one big thing we can do is be annoying. And I think we underestimate that power. We can send constant emails to MPs, to companies, calling for action. It took 2 years, but by doing exactly that, a group of professionals got Apple to create anti-stalking contingencies. Imagine what we could do with a whole group?

We all have the responsibility to take action. We all have the power to take action, and we need to use that power. For the women who were trapped in their own homes, for the women who were surviving day to day, We need to ensure that all technology is S-A-F-E so that they can be set free.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: Our second speaker is Sireen Al Khaled. Sireen attends Birrong Girls High School, and the subject of her speech is 'Australian voices, Australian conversations'.

Please welcome Sireen Al Khaled.

[applause]

SIREEN AL KHALED: Once upon a time, a few men with a bit too much time and far too much power opened up a fresh box of crayons, traced jagged lines across vast stretches of land and decided that the world should be divided. As colourful wax trails streaked across parchment borders are born, not just on maps, but in the minds of all who believed in them.

What began as geography slowly morphed into identity. Identity sharpened into allegiance, a quiet, unquestioned loyalty to the idea of 'us.' Today, these arbitrary squiggles dictate who we grieve, who we help and who we ignore.

Nationalism is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as 'an ideology that emphasises devotion to a nation, often prioritising national interests over other individual or group interests'.

The problem with this and other definitions of nationalism is that they are purely theoretical. They don't reflect how nationalism actually functions in practice. Real-world nationalism is primitive, statist and xenophobic. It isn't a synonym for patriotism, as many Australians like to believe. It is an archaic ideology that denigrates individualism in favour of group identity. This is why in a diverse society like Australia, nationalism, especially when taken to the extreme, is problematic.

It's important to note, however, that to the average Australian, nationalism isn't perceived to be malicious or complex. I mean, what comes to mind when you hear the word 'nationalism'? For most Australians, it's a feeling. It's the rush of pride that comes with seeing an unknown Olympic athlete clad in green and gold, the unity of a national anthem, the contentment of hosting a Sunday barbecue surrounded by good food, good company and the comfort of shared identity.

But here's where it gets tricky. Because nationalism has the power to unify, it inherits the power to divide. Nationalist principles are what stipulate the terms of inclusion in a country. They demand loyalty to a singular idea of what it means to belong, a shared, exclusive identity.

Take the US, for example. We are currently witnessing the impacts of lack of awareness surrounding nationalistic policy and how it can be used to sanitise exclusion. In Los Angeles this month, ICE swept through predominantly Hispanic neighbourhoods, mass detaining parents, workers, members of the community, no questions asked, no papers necessary upon detention, a fact conveniently glossed over by politicians and media stations who neglect to reveal how under federal law, being undocumented alone is a civil offence, not a criminal one.

ICE-- or better, the Trump administration-- is not distinguishing between safety threat and legal technicality. They are reinforcing a system built less to keep people out, and more to remind them that they were never truly in, that they were always a policy shift away from being unwelcome.

So when we think about the full spectrum of people who call Australia home, the 8.2 million citizens born overseas, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, we begin to see why traditional nationalism is incompatible with modern-day Australia. We begin to see how it has become an avenue that limits our empathy amongst those within and beyond our borders.

Multiculturalism in Australia has been idealised as a concept and paraded as a cornerstone of national pride. But in practice, because of traditional nationalists, that celebration often feels conditional. Take it from a Muslim Australian with Middle Eastern roots. Things aren't always so cheery when you have a constant eye on you. Speak your mother tongue too loudly, dress too differently, question too critically, and suddenly the narrative shifts. Because when you're not 'assimilating', you're the 'other'.

Ironically, this is felt most by the traditional custodians of the land. As tensions between multiculturalism and nationalism, white colonialism and born heritage were exposed during the Voice to Parliament referendum. The 2023 Voice referendum was created to implement a body of Indigenous representatives that could advise the Australian Parliament on matters that affect Indigenous Australians.

Despite initial support, the Voice referendum was defeated, with 60.1% voting no nationwide and no state achieving a majority yes vote. The referendum's $450 million failure is a perfect example of how nationalism, among other problematic ideologies, inherently suppresses collective empathy in Australia. One of the main reasons it was unsuccessful was due to concerns that acknowledging and prioritising the historical and systemic inequalities faced by Indigenous communities would create division-- the joke of the century, really.

So why is this relevant? How is it significant? For people like me, for the kids who grew up in culturally diverse households, the outcome of the referendum didn't just feel like a political loss. It felt personal. It made me question where we really stand as a country, who is really considered to be a part of the community. Because if even the first people of this land, after centuries of recognised oppression, will be granted a formal voice in parliament, the what hope is there for the rest of us trying to belong while holding on to who we are? It made me realise that our idea--

[bell ringing]

--of unity is still heavily influenced by who, as a nation, we're comfortable listening to and who we're not. And yes, not everyone had a personal vendetta against Aboriginal people. Some really were just ill-informed and voted alongside the masses.

But here's the thing. The real concern we should be focusing on is how easily ignorance was weaponised. How 'No' campaign slogans like 'If you don't know, vote no' gained traction not because Australians couldn't find the facts, but because they didn't care to. It was never really about not knowing. It was about not wanting to understand.

The other day I was on Instagram scrolling through an Australian creator's videos when I came across a post describing the Gaza humanitarian crisis and where audiences could donate to provide aid. When I opened up the comments, I was confronted by thousands of insensitive responses, all from users who either had the Australian flag in their username or bio, dismissing the suffering of millions in need with the same tired remark-- 'not my land, not my problem'.

So my questions are, where do we draw the line in the sand? When do we stop turning a blind eye to the pain, the exclusion, the suffering? How much further can we be pushed by nationalist ideologies into directing all our attention inwards, into focusing on favouring 'real Australians'? How long do we have before we see our very own ICE vans coming to take our neighbours away?

Truth is, there is no magical perfect solution. Even the classroom, one of the only settings of legitimate early education and influence, treats diversity like a side note. Collectively, we are taught to censor, to pry away from details, to make meaningful connections in relation to identity taboo. We need a legislative curriculum reform, one that redefines what it means to belong.

[bell ringing]

Because can only be set into motion once we formally confront the heavy questions, the questions that weigh down almost all Indigenous people and migrants alike. Who are the 'real' Australians, and who gets to decide that?

Thank you.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: Our third speaker is Anna Satchithananthan. Anna attends Meriden School, and the subject of her speech is 'Mediamorphosis'.

Please welcome Anna Satchithananthan.

[applause]

ANNA SATCHITHANANTHAN: 1,000 casualties, a UN estimate. Raging fires, riots and bomb shells and deaths. Mysterious white vans and sudden disappearances. But the most horrific part? That most of this audience won't know anything about the war that I am talking about, that these brutal war crimes go completely unacknowledged. And what for? Because the story had too much colour for the media to handle.

The Sri Lankan Civil War went on for 20 painstakingly long years. And for those of you who do not-- which I'm assuming is a lot of you-- the civil war was the result of conflict between 2 ethnic groups, a Sinhalese majority and a Tamil minority. The war was essentially based off the language that you spoke.

This war was the backdrop of my parents' childhood, and this war was the very reason why they left. So I want to point out something very, very important. I don't think that the reason why the war is not recognised enough is simply because the whole world just does not care about it. I believe it's because the Eurocentric media didn't care enough. Because how can the world care about a problem that they don't even know exists?

Fundamentally, media is supposed to inform, to educate and, most importantly, to share stories and raw truths, all of which ordinary people like you and me used to form opinions about the world around us.

But what if I told you that historically this institution has been responsible for stripping away voices and for forgoing important stories. And that's because for most of the 21st century, minority voices have never had the power to tell their truth. It makes me so upset to think that because we were never represented in the news, the 900,000 displaced people will not ever be brought to justice, that all they will hear is a deafening silence. Because it's a harsh truth, but in a broken world, media coverage can be the closest thing to justice.

But before I go any further, I've been throwing around this word media quite a lot. But when we say media, we are referring to forms of mass communication. So nowadays, this looks like news articles, TV shows, podcasts, et cetera, et cetera.

OK, so the Sri Lankan Civil War went on from 1983 to 2009. And I think in that time frame, the way in which we communicate has basically revolutionised. In 1993 is when the world wide web became available to the public, and I'm told that this was the internet. But then I also know that Google didn't come out till around 5 years later. So to be honest, I can't really imagine what that would look like. I had to go online and find some photos, but, yeah, let's just say I was pretty shocked.

But this was monumental because before this, or for the first 10 years of the war, the media that you'd get was really traditional. You'd get a printed newspaper, a magazine and so on and so forth. And then in 2007, iPhone 1 was released by Apple. And for some context, I was born in 2009, which means I never really saw what mobile phones looked like before the iPhone. But I did hear that a popular model was called the BlackBerry. So with blackberries and apples, you might as well have been grocery shopping.

But again, the invention of the iPhone, this was historic, because now people could access the internet on the go. And obviously, social media was invented. So Facebook and YouTube came out just a few years before the iPhone. But then you had Instagram and Musical.ly, which is now known as TikTok.

And I know that having such unrestricted access to social media like we do now is by no means always a good thing. But regardless, it lets us look back at the way that traditional media functioned with almost a new lens. Because traditionally, news coverage was probably one of the most common ways that we learnt about current affairs.

And if we take a look at some of the biggest news corporations in all of America-- I'm talking 'New York Times', 'The Wall Street Journal', 'LA Today' and 'USA Today', you will find that every single one of these companies had a Caucasian male founder. And until very, very recently, every single editor-in-chief was also a Caucasian male.

Now, before anyone goes and thinks we're in 2025 now, this sort of stuff doesn't happen anymore, I will take this opportunity to personally remind you that, according to a Pew Research Centre survey from 2022, 76% of journalists are of Caucasian descent. So it's safe to say that journalism is not a very diverse sector. In fact, it is very Eurocentric.

Let me explain to you why that's a problem. Now, I don't know if we have any writers in this room, but surely you've heard of the writing advice 'Write what you know'. And it's so true. Because when you write about something that you have personal experience with can deliver it in a way that is beautifully authentic and true and sensitive to your subject matter.

So if-- and that's a big if-- but if we had a broad spectrum of identities being represented within the journalism sector, we'd have so many people who knew so many unique things, and we would get to hear an important variety of stories.

Now, there's another pretty obvious problem with news corporations-- and I do feel this reason is linked to 99% of the problems in the world-- but money. News corporations are businesses, after all, and they pick and choose the stories that can guarantee them audience engagement. I mean, I get it. You want to engage your audience, so why take the risk of talking about a small island--

[bell ring]

--in the middle of the Indian Ocean? Why talk about human rights violations if people only care about the weather after all?

And that's why I think that the solution to this problem is to show major corporations that we do care. And that is exactly what social media can do for us. Think about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite innocent civilians dying and experiencing some of the worst injustices possible in Gaza, news coverage has tried to skew these stories, that these civilians are not victims, but somehow perpetrators.

But then social media came in and it reshaped the way that we look at and also the way that we report on the war. And part of the reason was because everyday people in Gaza were given a voice. They could create content that showed us the harsh reality of their situation. And when a viewer sees this directly, it is striking, it's confronting and, most importantly, it's impossible to ignore.

I know that videos made by Palestinian users have definitely showed up on my For You page before, and if you click into it and you read the comments, there are tens of thousands of supportive messages, so many likes and even more views. People care so much.

And something I think about all the time is that if the war in Sri Lanka had happened in a time where social media was as prevalent as it is now, wouldn't things have ended so much better? If people could see how tragic and horrific these hidden crimes were, I just know they would have supported us.

That's why I think we need to take the power of storytelling back into our very own hands. And we need to do this by taking advantage of social media, using it to empower minority voices to want to share their stories and tell their truth. How so? By viewing and by listening, but also by engaging every single like and every single comment.

[bell ringing]

Or better yet, we need to be telling our own. We have an audience that cares so much about what we have to say, and we have platforms that are designed to exemplify our voices.

So if I can leave you with one last piece of writing advice, I want you to write about what you don't want to be forgotten.

Thank you.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: Our fourth speaker is Amelie Battye from Monaro High School. The subject of Amelie's speech is 'Parasite'.

Please welcome Amelie Battye.

[applause]

AMELIE BATTYE: 'Moment of truth, Hank. Am I a living being or just a machine?'

'You're a machine, Connor. Just a machine.'

I've played enough.

'Detroit: Become Human' to know that AI in its extremity can lead to death, destruction and the end of the world. An exaggeration, maybe, but as AI advances at an ever-increasing pace, we get closer to the world of '2001' than we are to actually living in '2001'.

To be fair, as a work of science, the development of deep learning in computers is an incredible feat of human achievement. And though it will be a while before we have to worry about the impending nature of Skynet and total nuclear destruction, for commercial digital artists, musicians and writers, it's already doomsday.

What happens when AI replaces the artist? Although we've already seen the end of avant garde with the advent of postmodernism, what happens when we reach the end of art itself?

From the very beginning of history, art has existed to connect human beings through our common experiences. Artists and writers such as Michelangelo and Shakespeare still speak to young artists working in completely different circumstances all around the world. No matter how escapist the work is from the reality we live in, it is inherently tied to our humanity, our emotions, our hopes and dreams.

Art is made as a means of exploring the self, and it often urges audiences to think critically about our own lives and livelihoods. It's a testament to human ability, and that's inspiring.

We don't watch movies just because they look cool. We watch them because they evoke something in us so deeply and instinctually human through the way they're shot, through the stories they tell of the hero's journey and the villain's demise, through the music played in them and through the cinematography. If we just watch them for the baseline aesthetics, what would be the point? We indulge in art because it is full of soul. It reminds us why we live.

Art is already so underappreciated in our society, and most animators, actors, directors, musicians and writers struggle to find jobs to make ends meet, if any. I've grown up in a family of artists who for so long didn't have enough money to live comfortably, but the passion and the beauty of what art could be kept us going. Can many other kids say their mum worked on 'LEGO Batman'? I think not.

And this just shows the importance of it. People are willing to work for nothing so that they can continue to tell stories that connect to people, so that they can better our society with their craft. Art makes people want to live. It's hard to even describe how it can alter someone's life so fervently. It's uniquely personal to our species. which makes you beg the question, why do we need AI if we already have artists? How we want AI making art, this thing, which at its core is full of soul and humanity, when it is just code?

AI is a detriment to art and its presence in our society, not only because it's a soulless means of creation, but it is inherently parasitic, feeding itself on host artists that never consented to have their work used for such a purpose. AI is trained and built on a database that learns of pre-existing writing and images from various artists all across the internet. Artists do not consent to this, and as such, we find ourselves in a space wherein artists are not just blatantly being copied, but absorbed.

The filmmaker Tim Burton has said that 'it feels like a robot is stealing your humanity, your soul'. As unethical as this already is, we can all also find ourselves in the midst of a forgery crisis. What I mean by this is people will use AI to intentionally copy other artists' styles, which is not only harmful in a way that can create distasteful images made in the name of others, but also in that it is taking something which is so precious and full of soul, full of purpose from an individual, and just desecrating it.

We can see this most evidently in the recent Studio Ghibli controversy. Thousands of users have taken to social media to show off themselves, their partners, their pets in the beloved style of Studio Ghibli, as seen in 'Spirited Away'. 'Totoro'. 'Princess Mononoke'. Don't get me wrong. Fan art is great, but all of these images have been created with the use of AI, as advertised by companies like ChatGPT and Midjourney.

This is made even worse when many users know how Hayao Miyazaki, the creative genius behind Studio Ghibli, feels about AI, rightfully calling it 'an insult to life itself'. In 2016, when confronted with the idea that computer scientists were building a machine that draws pictures in the way Miyazaki himself does, he responded with disgust, stating that 'I feel we are nearing the end of times. We have lost faith in ourselves'.

The meaning of art gets lost when we turn to insidious methods of creation that can only ever mimic or feed on our processes, rather than emerge organically from our lived experiences.

And this doesn't only affect artists, but also anyone else who views art. That's everyone in this room. We consume art every day, whether we realise it or not. It could be anything from a painting in a gallery to an advertisement on YouTube. People who engage in these mediums don't enjoy AI art, despite the insistent endeavour from big companies to shove it down our throats as the next big step in art, from video games to movies and advertising.

AI art is not only morally wrong, but it also just ruins the overall quality of art. It's uncanny, and it doesn't look good for any company, as seen in the recent backlash surrounding ads or promotions for some of the richest companies in the world, like Disney and Coca-Cola. Brands who once had these innovative and engaging ideas with enormous budgets are now starting to rely on AI, and the general public don't like it. It's removing the genuine creative approach that built up those brands that made them so appealing in the first place. You can't beat the real thing, right?

We need to put a stop to this incessant use of AI in spaces that it ultimately doesn't improve, but rather destroys. Don't listen to the so-called creatives who bargain for its use, capitalising on the fact that because they're in the industry, they know what's best for it. That's not true.

And by definition, AI cannot make art that accurately and passionately expresses the human psyche. It's actively making art worse for art makers and viewers, and using AI as a tool only encourages this. Avoid using that filter that makes you look like a Disney princess, or actually take the time to create that fantasy epic that you've always dreamed of doing--

[bell ring]

--before resorting to artificial intelligence.

The feeling of actually finishing a piece is so rewarding and gratifying that it is just not the same as receiving an image generated in 2 seconds by a computer.

With artificial intelligence, we were so dazzled by what it could be used for that we didn't bother to ask what it should be used for. While you could-- while you can create a computer that simulates film and imagery in the style of Hayao Miyazaki, what possible reason could you have for wanting that? What is the end goal, a world where we've forgotten to think and feel?

Does humanity want, as stated so eloquently by the painter Francis Bacon, 'the sensation without the boredom of the conveyance'? Are we living in a 'John Henry' world where the machine comes for us all in the end, no matter how good you are or what field you're in?

Within a few years, months, days, this could easily lead to the end of art as we know it. The end of thousands of animators, playwrights and musicians trying to master their craft. Corporations and governments will no longer fund the arts, because why do we need people when we could just have computers who get the job done 4,000 times faster?

And we can already see this in effect. In China, animation studios have been reduced to AI and one editor. During the writers' strike last year, writers rooms were replaced with one showrunner and a computer running ChatGPT. Adrien Brody, who recently won an Oscar for 'The Brutalist', had AI enhance his performance because he couldn't quite do a Hungarian accent. Do you know how many people on Earth can actually do a Hungarian accent?

Again, it ruins the purpose of why we make art, something so integral to our society. It's a detriment to the soul blood, sweat, and tears that go into every piece of art, and it destroys the authenticity and purpose of the viewing experiences, tearing down the dreams of so many individuals who just want to create.

I want to work on comic books, movies, video games. But by the time I go through art school, these jobs will be obsolete. The need for the artist is dwindling, but art bleeds into every aspect of human life. It's dystopian or ironic that the one thing finally threatening to replace AI--

[bell ringing]

--is literally without a soul.

We don't need AI to create meaningful art. We don't need it to fill in the gaps artists may not reach. Fundamentally, it is breaking down the one thing that keeps us united as people, from the beginning of human communication to now and forever.

David Bowie was once asked in an interview, 'Do you indulge in worship?' Do you want to know what he said in response? 'Life. I love life very much.'

Thank you.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: Our fifth speaker is Olivia Wright. Olivia attends Hurlstone Agricultural High School and the subject of her speech is 'Between two dawns'.

Please welcome Olivia Wright.

[applause]

OLIVIA WRIGHT: It's 5 am. It's cold, dark, and I'm standing in my driveway in my bright pink dressing gown, impatiently waiting for the family to go to my local dawn service. As I waited, I scrolled on my phone, sifting through the aftermath of yet another teenage party also time-stamped at 5 am. Same time, 2 very different dawns.

As I went on to stand in silence, I was surrounded by the usual abundance of poppies-- albeit not just the flowers, actual poppies-- pops, grandfathers, a sea of grey hairs and the lingering scent of Old Spice. I felt strangely out of place, not because I didn't care, but rather that I wasn't quite sure where I fit. The youngest by decades, caught somewhere between the weight of the past and the pace of my present.

Why is the divide between commemoration and young people grown so wide? They're almost like 2 trenches staring across a no man's land of outdated ritual, where connection used to seem possible but now appears too dangerous or distant to cross.

However, if we don't become willing to cross this space, memory doesn't just fade. It fractures. And if young people can't see themselves in our national narrative, then they simply stop telling it altogether.

Now, I've been to my fair share of Anzac Day services, enough to earn the unofficial title of Anzac girl among my friends. Sure, it's a little on the nose, but I think there's much worse nicknames out there.

But I just remember, while speaking at my school's service, being blindsided by the sheer amount of blank stares and restless murmurs. Halfway through I even tried to speed up and skip a sentence or 2 purely because I felt guilty.

Now I will give some grace, considering the solemnity of the service was slightly sabotaged by a last post rendition, which, despite the players efforts, sounded closer to a cockatoo being strangled than the actual tune. Yet my guilt didn't come from a place of frustration. Rather guilt that my words, sincere as they were, landed more like white noise than an invitation to reflect.

So I tried to trace the fault lines, to pinpoint where this divide stems from. Firstly, there's the obvious but less satisfying explanation-- the last generation with living ties to the world wars are almost gone. The emotional bridge once built by these stories has inevitably weakened, and now history arrives to us safely secondhand, through sanitised textbooks and token speeches.

The disconnect also can't be due to these wars feeling too far removed as something to be living alongside now. The horrors of war are no longer confined to grainy black and white footage, but rather unfolding in real time.

And yet, despite this immediacy-- and perhaps even because of it-- our collective response feels strangely hollow. Scrolling past these atrocities sandwiched between the newest ephemeral trend, this culture of constant distractions makes our traditional ceremonies feel slow or even obsolete. Grief gets aestheticised, outrage becomes performative and, consequently, our ceremonies resist discomfort, occupying any liminal spaces for doubt with a solemn script that rarely evolves.

Macquarie University agrees that this is only fostering more historical tourists, not the ones that wear those obscenely bright souvenir shirts, but rather those who pass through memorial spaces without realising their full context. And I'll admit, I've been an unwitting tourist myself. Since getting my P's, I've driven past a cluster of bright red poles on the M7 countless times, only recently realising these poles were a Memorial for the Australian Light Horse. So if even an Anzac aficionado missed the meaning, then what chance does the average driver have, especially when it feels more about roadside decor than reminders of sacrifice?

This lack of historical and social literacy makes connecting for young people that much more difficult. As if we can't contextualise what we see, then its importance becomes futile. But perhaps part of the disconnect stems from the nature of remembrance itself. See, we often treat memory as inherently virtuous without first acknowledging that not all memories are worth preserving.

I've grown up hearing family war stories, stories laced with some deep resentment toward enemy nations. If I were to honour this anger, if I were to inherit this anger, I wouldn't be honouring history, but rather inheriting their hatred. Likewise, past wars in the Balkans were fueled by centuries-old ethnic grievances, showing how remembrance, when unexamined, can instead entrench division.

This is yet another risk we run when we teach young people to remember without helping them critically reflect. If remembrance becomes about loyalty to the past, rather than learning from it, we end up handing down prejudice instead of perspective. In doing so, we misshape the kind of nation we choose to be, the voices that we elevate and the values that we carry forward.

So the problem isn't that young people don't care. It's that we simply haven't been shown why we should. We need to hear stories that resonate, that spark reflection, that make us remember out of respect and not obligation. Now, I'm not going to suggest we throw students into wartime re-enactments 'Hunger Games' style, but rather we must branch outside the monotonous services and the contemporary highway sculptures nobody has a clue about.

During my study tour of Japan last year, I saw exactly what authentic remembrance should look like. Standing in the ruins of Hiroshima, I saw students offer paper cranes and bow their heads, acts not about scripted, polished performances, but ones which offered space for vulnerability. It was quiet. It was imperfect. But it was real. And that's exactly what we need more of.

[bell ring]

So for the next service you hopefully wake up for, don't just attend. Find a personal story to connect with. Learn their name, What They gave up. Share these stories not out of obligation, but because you're choosing to make this memory visible. Let it be small.

Appealing to youth doesn't mean dumbing things down. It means recognising how we engage, short form and digital content that spotlight those untold wartime accounts, whether that be through TikTok, Instagram Reels or whatever Meta's latest identity crisis is. Initiatives like the Australian War memorials museum at home program proved that when commemoration adapts to a digital space, young people respond. But in order to do this, we need to make room for those contested histories, not just Gallipoli framed as a noble failure, but the stories that complicate how and why we remember it all, from the likes of the Frontier Wars and beyond. When we broaden the lens of remembrance, we let more people in.

If your community service feels slightly stale, then push for change. Propose more student-led ceremonies. Curate a local exhibition. Host a podcast. Invite veterans not based upon their medals, but rather for their truths and for their struggles. Even propose the creation of geotagged maps that explain those memorials we drive past every day.

Because in all honesty, I'm hoping someday I'm not the only individual being dubbed an Anzac girl. Not because I dislike the name, but because I'd like to see more young people claim this space, too.

Because the choice between the 2 dawns isn't just about staying up or waking up. Maybe the choice is whether we let commemoration be something distant and obligatory, or something we make our own. It's a choice to show up, to listen, to question, even when it's uncomfortable-- especially when it's uncomfortable. As if remembrance has continued to withstand the mid-service yawns and some highly dodgy bugle renditions, then it can survive practically anything. It doesn't have to be perfect or polished--

[bell ringing]

--or solemn the same way it was 100 years ago. It just has to remain alive. As if we don't find new ways to connect with the past, we risk waking up in a world where the phrase 'lest we forget' rings hollow. And instead of standing in my bright pink dressing gown at dawn, I won't need to say lest we forget, because we'll already have forgotten it ourselves.

Thank you.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: Our final speaker today is Jessie Forrest from Redlands School. The subject of Jessie's speech is 'The reels-pokies pipeline'.

Please welcome Jesse Forrest.

[applause]

JESSE FORREST: Last month, one of my good mates, who had recently turned 18, offhandedly mentioned how he'd lost $50 at the pokies the night before. Now, my first reaction was to laugh and lightheartedly tease him. You know, 95% of gamblers quit before they win big. Keep at it, big guy.

But a week later, he lost another $50, then $100, then $150 back, then lost $200 again. In the space of just a few weeks, one of my mates, someone my age who, only a few years ago, I was playing 'Brawl Stars' and having sleepovers with, so casually turning my ironic joke into a reality.

To me, gambling was something for middle-aged footy fans and pensioners with too much time on their hands, not high schoolers. But this conversation was not an outlier. It is becoming increasingly clear that Gen Z is poised to become the biggest gamblers in Australian history. And the worst part? This trend is intentionally engineered.

Speaking to this room of mostly young people, it is statistically unlikely that you'll be hitting the pokies or the racetrack this weekend. Yet you may think, like I did, that gambling is last generation's problem, and find the idea of sliding banknotes into a poker machine completely foreign. However, even if you don't realise it, the very behaviours that make gambling so addictive are present in all of your lives.

Take the sunk cost fallacy, defined as the phenomenon where people are reluctant to abandon a course of action because they've already invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that stopping is the most beneficial. With the pokies, this manifests as thoughts like, 'I've already lost 100 tonight, I can't walk away now. I need to win some of it back. If I stop now, I've wasted all that money. I've been sitting here for an hour. Surely it's about to hit.'

Out of context, this thought process seems so clearly wrong, and in each case, the best course of action is to walk away as quick as possible. But when you're in the heat of the moment, lights flashing, slots spinning all around you, losing doesn't make you want to quit. It makes you want to keep playing.

But the sunk cost fallacy is not just present in the pokies. It also makes much more subtle appearances in the daily lives of young people. Imagine, you've been scrolling Reels for half an hour already, and even though you have an assignment next week, one more reel can't hurt. Then another. Then another. It's the same story. You feel horrible once you finally do stop and you've wasted all that time.

But when you're stuck in that infinite loop, a voice in the back of your head is saying, 'Keep at it. 95% of doom scrollers quit before they hit their next Italian brainrot edit.'

[laughter]

Do you see my point? Infinite scroll apps like TikTok and Reels eerily mirror slot machines, endless colourful nuggets spinning past, hoping you land on a morsel of something interesting or funny before continuing to try your odds on the next scroll. We are the first generation of kids to grow up with a dopamine drip feeder in our pockets, and now Gen Z is hitting the age where we can legally gamble.

Based on recent studies, Australia is experiencing an explosion in gambling rates. In 2023, $244 billion-- billion with a B-- was gambled in Australia, almost as much as the GDP of New Zealand. Yet this figure is still on the rise.

While scratches and ponies and other affectionately named traditional forms of gambling are on the decline, digital gambling is taking its place hundreds times over. Sports betting are migrating to social media like apps, poker machines are becoming cashless, linked directly to digital wallets. Mobile apps played by children include gambling games barely disguised in colourful facades.

And the global interconnectedness of the internet has allowed people to bet on literally anything that even mildly resembles a competition. My luck-repellent mate from earlier? Do not even ask him how much he lost on a multi between the Eastern European Slap Fighting Championships and betting on who the new pope is going to be.

It seems like gambling is very quickly evolving to become more and more integrated into digital culture, creating a pipeline directly into extremely addictive forms of betting. And the scariest part is this all by design. To understand how gambling is so quickly adapting to meet the exact habits of our generation, we must take a dive into the field of behavioural economics.

Up until the mid-20th century, all economic models and theories were based on the idea that all people make their decisions in a logical and predictable way. Behavioural economics disregards this axiom, attempting to explain the prevalence of irrational choices. In essence, behavioural economists found that many decisions are based on biases and emotion, not a cost-benefit analysis.

Ever signed up to a free trial or bought something with a price tag ending in $0.99? That's behavioural economics in action. It is through this research framework that the sunk cost fallacy was named and studied. Over the past few decades, our collective knowledge of how brains work has massively increased, discovering a multitude of other biases-- the gambler's fallacy, illusion of control, loss aversion, anchoring and many, many more.

It is here, in the study of behavioural economics that our core ethical issue is found. On one hand, the development of this knowledge can help us understand the victims of addiction and build more effective methods for rehabilitation. Or this knowledge can be corrupted to do the exact opposite-- optimise every slot machine, every social media algorithm, every mobile game to create the perfect environment for maximum losses.

I'll remind you, $244 billion was gambled in Australia in 2023 in the same year, Australians averaged almost 2 hours a day on social media. It is abundantly clear that, as a society, we have allowed behavioural economics to be corrupted at the expense of normal people who aren't able to help themselves.

But what can we do to combat all this? There's no silver bullet that will put behavioural economics back in Pandora's box, or reverse the years of conditioning that the digital world has exposed our generation to.

[bell ring]

We have tools of psychology at our disposal, waiting for us to turn them into weapons or into shields. If we want to solve this discrepancy of who is making the choices and who is facing the brunt of the consequences, we must actively decide to use behavioural economics for good.

This looks like increased regulation on gambling companies, recognising and intervening where they're exploitative of harmful behaviours. This also looks like widespread acknowledgment of the dangers of psychology and education from a young age on how to recognise manipulative tactics. And most importantly, it looks like incentivising behavioural research towards developing means of reducing the impact of biases and finding ways of fighting addiction.

Either way, it is important to not stand idly by. I'm part of the problem when I laugh off my mate's losses as a light joke, instead of acknowledging the insidious forces behind it.

Now, while you ponder over how you can make changes in your life to combat the Reels-pokies pipeline, I have an offer that you cannot resist. For a limited time only, I'm offering a 7-legged same-game multi, increased data transparency, a Royal Commission, bipartisan reform, my screen time to go down, SportsBet to increase the font size of their disclaimer, a sudden nationwide loss of interest in spinning, flashing lights, and the Crown Casino taking off into space like the gigantic, intergalactic, phallic rocket ship it is-- currently paying out $14 million to $1.

But make sure to place your bets early, because for every person who makes the choice to be more aware of the decisions, more aware of how the content they consume is rewiring their brains, more aware of the intent with which this process is engineered, the odds will fall, bit by bit, until these seemingly impossible outcomes become a reality.

So as always, gamble responsibly.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: 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.

We are now ready for the impromptu section. The 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 rung at 3 and a half minutes if the speaker exceeds the maximum time by more than 30 seconds. The subject for the impromptu section is 'A meeting of minds'.

Please welcome back Poppy Cheek.

[applause]

POPPY CHEEK: Standing in the NSW state parliament chamber during youth parliament just a few weeks ago was one of the most enlightening experiences of my life. It felt like a meeting of minds of almost 100 young people from all across the state. All we wanted to do was make change, and it felt like that is exactly what we were doing.

But leaving was bittersweet. Because for the first time during that program, I had felt like I could properly make a difference, like this meeting of youth minds could make a difference, and we just don't have enough opportunities like that. Youth advocacy is dying. We're not seeing as many climate protests, as many Indigenous rights protests, as we did before COVID.

Maybe it was COVID that stopped it. Maybe it was something else. But what we need is for it to pick back up again. Maybe it's because of minds not meeting there is a shift towards more progressivism and more conservatism polarising the youth.

But what-- but the main thing is that we don't have enough opportunities for this meeting of minds with the youth. We have opportunities such as this public speaking competition. But let's be realistic. How many people can actually get up and speak to a group of people, and how many people are actually chosen to?

We need more spaces in society where the youth can actually share their voices, where they can actually lobby to MPs and create change. Our youth parliament bills are going to be given to MPs, they may not take that on.

[bell ring]

But the main thing is that they have seen this meeting of minds in youth voices, and these MPs have the opportunity to implement this action that the youth want for our future.

Youth parliament has taught me that change does not just happen to you. It happens because of you. The youth need to stop being so complacent, and we need to be able to create spaces where we don't have to be complacent. We need to be able to share our voices in spaces like this, but bigger. Because this change affects, will-- everything that's happening in the world will affect us, and this change needs to come from us.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: Please welcome back Sireen Al Khaled.

[applause]

SIREEN AL KHALED: My TikTok For You page is trying to encourage a meeting of minds. You see, the algorithm thinks I want to churn butter in a frilly apron while my nonexistent husband goes to war. I guess I better get started early, right? First stop, Hannah Neeleman's Instagram page, the tradwife queen herself, where I can pay $50 for a sourdough starter tutorial. Because that's all traditional women do now, right, buy overpriced bread kits while their husband becomes the breadwinner?

The romanticisation of the tradwife trend is trying to encourage a meeting of minds. Australian men and women are being influenced to acknowledge a traditional ideology that fails to address the negative impacts that the tradwife, the traditional lifestyle has on women's financial independence and men's health and welfare.

And look, there's nothing wrong with a man and woman having a meeting of mind and choosing together to take a traditional marital pathway when both partners understand the trade-offs. But what we're currently seeing is a tsunami of these online tradwife influencers targeting young people while neglecting to discuss with their 1950s lifestyle demands in 2025.

Take Nara Smith, a model turned TikToker, who's become the face of the tradwife trend, attracting millions of viewers with videos of herself creating labour-intensive staples ranging from Takis to toothpaste, all while looking like she stepped off a Balenciaga runway. She's encouraging this meeting of minds. Women worldwide, our fellow Aussies, are falling for her trap.

But offline, the tradwife isn't just a homemaker, she's the sole domestic provider. She becomes financially dependent, emotionally burdened and often socially isolated. She's often left without super, work experience, savings, a safety net. And it's not just women being impacted by this.

[bell ring]

Australian men are also struggling to cope with the tradwife trend. They're gravitating towards this ideology because they feel like it's safe. They feel like with shifting gender norms, rising expectations and the emotional fluency modern partnerships demand, having a traditional lifestyle offers a sense of security.

But especially now in a cost of living crisis, this sense of security comes at a cost. Financial stress is one of the primary factors of suicide, the leading cause of death for men aged below 54 in Australia. It is dangerous to idealise this lifestyle for people, for the general public, while it's only viable for the financial flourishing privileged demographic.

We need to start prioritising media literacy and financial literacy in schools. People need to understand why we've left behind these traditional frameworks and social ideologies. They need to understand why we've moved on and why it's no longer working in modern society.

[bell ringing]

Ask your grandma why she no longer-- well, maybe no longer-- agrees with the tradwife trend. She's seen the impacts. She's gotten out, and she's protested against what this stands for.

If people do choose to take this pathway in the future, they need to have a plan B, because unless a woman marries an immortal rich man that's ethical and is impervious to harm, they're at risk. Men are also facing the same risk, but they're just not being told about it.

[bell ringing]

Thank you very much.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: Please welcome back, Anna Satchithananthan.

[applause]

ANNA SATCHITHANANTHAN: A little while ago, I had some pretty bad headaches. So, as one does, I went to a couple of different medical professionals and I met with some amazing minds to try and figure out what was the problem with me. And I think that after a few different appointments of being told to go home, to take Panadol and to rest, I realised that my issue was not really being taken seriously.

And unfortunately, this is what women across Australia experience. 55% of women say that they have felt a medical professional invalidate their pain before, and I think the statistic is that 32% feel their GP has done this to them.

Now, why does this happen? Well, what you need to understand is that medicine is essentially a meeting for male minds, and therefore a lot of conversations about women's bodies, how women feel pain, and how certain conditions exhibit themselves within a female body just haven't been researched enough. That's why I want to talk about the gender pain gap, because it simply is not good enough and it cannot keep on going on.

Now, if medical theory-- if we have a look back at the history of medical theory, you will find that a lot of clinical research has been done on male bodies, because medicine has always been catered for male bodies. That means that we don't know a lot about how women experience pain.

So I want to talk about the example of the heart attack. If you think about a heart attack, you've probably seen it on TV. It's like a man clutching to his chest and breathing a little bit ruggedly.

But actually, when a woman experiences a heart attack, that looks more like a sharp shoulder pain, or maybe a really acute pain in their arm. And because we don't know so much about how women experience pain-- because the medical industry, as I've said it, is a conversation and a meeting for male minds, not for women's bodies-- that means that women take so much longer to be diagnosed accurately with a heart attack. And you don't have time to waste with these kinds of issues. It also means that conditions that only females experience are critically underfunded.

I want to take a look at the condition endometriosis.

[bell ring]

Now for me, I went to a couple different medical appointments where I was being ignored, and I obviously felt that was quite a painful process to go through. But if you were someone with endometriosis, it would take you on average 10 years to get a diagnosis. This is not good enough.

So how do we change the structural nature of the medical industry? How do we make it so that it's not just a meeting for male minds, but also that for women?

Now, I could tell you that the solution is to diversify medical training and to ensure that all medical professionals are accurately trained so that they can equitably treat all patients. But I actually think the solution is for you to know how to get yourself into that conversation. You see, if the medical industry is a meeting for male minds, you need to know how to get your voice as a female to be taken seriously.

And the number one tip that I can give to you is to keep a pain journal. So this is a written record of your symptoms. Obviously, doctors are people of science. And so if you have a written record, if you have data that grounds what you're experiencing, they can find it a lot harder to dismiss you.

[bell ringing]

Lastly, if you think that what you have to say is not being taken seriously and it's a conversation that's being made and created by men, then you can find a better medical professional out there. Good luck and thank you.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: Please welcome back Amelie Battye.

AMELIE BATTYE: A meeting of minds, a collective we as a society, the world wide web-- when I think of a meeting of minds, I think of people connecting through social media, connecting with other people through their minds, their interests, a place where you can belong. If this is what social media has the potential to be for adults, why not for youth?

In 2024-- hopefully, effective December 2025-- there was a ban placed, or there will be a ban placed, on social media like Snapchat, Discord, TikTok and Instagram on people under the age of 16. And I don't think this is necessary. I don't think we should do this. My argument for why restricting internet access may be good to some degree in terms of content, inappropriate content, but I think that social connection on social, through social media, for youth can actually be a benefit.

When people make this argument, they often cite bullying as a reason for preventing youth to be on social media. But I would like to say bullying-- bullying happens anyway. 20% of people age 12 to 18 say that they are being bullied, 19% of which happens in school-- and anything that doesn't happen in school, for example, on social media. Often the people being bullied on social media are being bullied by people they already know in person.

The good thing about social media is that you have the ability to take control of what you see, who you talk to whether that be good or bad. If someone is negatively talking to you on the internet, you have the ability to block or restrict them, but you also have the ability to find community.

This is important, particularly in rural areas where I come from, where if you're an outcast, you generally don't have a lot of people like you. It's a great place to find other people with your interests or for example, like me, I moved from Sydney to Cooma. I was able to keep the connections with my friends even though I wasn't 16, and that has helped me survive high school.

[bell ringing]

The internet is a place to belong. Meet people, find minds, and it's a place where even though content can be inappropriate, I think social connection is an incredible benefit.

My solution to this would be although we can regulate content, I don't think we should restrict young people from being able to talk to other people across the world. It's a place where we can find community, allow kids and youth to communicate, because that one friend on Discord or Snapchat or TikTok might just be the one thing to save kids everywhere. Thank you.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: Please welcome back Olivia Wright.

[applause]

OLIVIA WRIGHT: Throughout the past week, I've been living on a beautifully balanced diet consisting of 2 things-- Red Bulls and a healthy side of existential dread. See, I'm currently in the midst where 180 Year 12 students meet all their minds together in the hall, otherwise known as the Trial HSC period.

It's been intense. I've been constantly memorising Shakespeare at 2 am, having an early-onset midlife crisis. And in all honesty, I'm not unique. I'm just one of thousands of other individuals running on low battery, high expectations and the vague hope that everything will slow down after this.

Spoiler alert-- it probably won't. See somewhere along the way, we've created this culture where it's called 'about the hustle', 'the grind', or what TikTok calls 'the grind set', where minds meet together, where success is the number one priority and nothing else matters. 25-hour work weeks, it's what compels parents to humble brag about their 70-hour weeks instead of spending time with their children. As long as you're sleep deprived, overcommitted and dangerously reliant on caffeine like it's an IV drip, I mean, are you even trying?

But the real danger of this is that our minds become numb to it. We become desensitised to this productivity trap where individuals feel compelled to constantly keep working, constantly keep pushing themselves, without leaving time to actually breathe and find time for their well-being, social connections.

Organisational psychologist Adam Grant calls this state 'languishing'. We're not fully burnt out, but we're not quite thriving either. Our minds are met at this crucible point, where we're still continuing to push on and go through the motions, but we're not fully there, we're not fully invested.

And this has real detrimental consequences when it comes to perpetuating cycles of overwork in the workplace. Individuals innately tie their self-worth to their performance. Their minds are focused on generating profit and getting to the next step of constantly wanting to do more, but not finding time to do less and slow down.

[bell ring]

So do we combat, how do we break free from the productivity trap and let our minds meet somewhere where well-being can be prioritised? Well, maybe it's time we stop treating the word balance like a decorative word on a well-being brochure. Maybe investing more support, more flexible deadlines, more emphasis on the right-to-disconnect laws within Australia, allowing individuals a chance to disconnect from their workplaces, from their institutions, and finally find time to work on themselves.

Interpersonally, maybe we stop glamourising the grind. Maybe we stop listening to what the media CEOs are telling us on TikTok whilst they sip their oat milk lattes, telling us to get up at 4:30 am, complete your 10-step skincare routine all before the hours of 8 am.

Our minds become numb. We feel like this is the status quo that we constantly have to keep pushing ourselves, and as a result, we become stuck in this state keep on working and nothing actually gets done. Our connections erode, our self-worth dissipates. So, yes--

[bell ringing]

--I'm standing today 2 metaphors away from comparing Shakespeare to sleep paralysis. But I'm also here to remind us that phones don't work as they should on 1%. Our minds need to be focused on other things besides just the hustle culture and made a place where we can actually find time to recharge. Thank you.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: Please welcome back Jesse Forrest.

[applause]

JESSE FORREST: Now, as some of the more observant people in this crowd may have noticed, I am wearing a sling. Now to that I say, number 1, well, you should have seen the other guy. But number 2, if you were to guess what sport I was playing when I got this injury, how likely would it have been to say rugby?

Yes, it's true, we do have a bit of a stereotype, a common misconception that rugby is for brutish and violent people, for people who look like our big oxes and gorillas, rather than the dainty little football players-- or soccer, as the Europeans call it.

Now, you might not think it, but rugby is truly a meeting of the minds, no matter how it looks on the outside. And this is true for 2 key reasons. Number 1, the depth of tactics and strategy that often goes unnoticed. And number 2, the true respect and connection that really does come from games like rugby.

So my first point, in reality, rugby is a meeting of the minds because of the depths of strategy. Now, as I've gotten older and more mature and thinking about more complex things, I've realised rugby is not just about running up and bashing each other. I've listened to podcasts, played fantasy football, and what this has made me realise is the players, in particular halfbacks and fullbacks, along with the coaches, study the game with an incredible dedication. They spend more time in video rooms looking at old footage of theirself and their opposition than they even do on the training pitch, to pick up on the tiny little movements of the opposition to predict what is going to happen next, and then decide in the split-second how they are going to react in the most optimal way.

Now, while some games are decided by the conflict, by the contact in the middle of the field, an equal number, if not more, are decided in those tiny moments by the incredible thoughts, not only quick but decisive, of the key playmakers.

Now, secondly, respect, and this is one of the more unnoticed things about rugby that I think is truly valuable. Regardless of the outcome--

[bell ring]

--after every match, the players shake hands. One of my favourite stories from the NRL this year was a player called Cam Munster, who, in the lead-up to Origin 3, his father sadly passed away. Now it was stirred up in the media and made into a headline how it would affect his play. But in reality, at the end of the game, not only did his own teammates, but the other teams, the Blues, gave him a handshake and a hug, congratulating him on not only the win, but the trying time that he was going through.

So my message to you, look for connection, even in places that seem like they're for conflict. Sometimes the most powerful way to connect with each other comes from the most unexpected places. Thank you.

[applause]

HARINI MURIGIPUDI: I would like to call on Aman Mohamed to deliver the adjudication and announce the winner of the Plain English Speaking Award for 2025.

[applause]

AMAN MOHAMED: Hi, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us.

First of all, I want to start off by saying a massive thank you to the Arts Unit for organising such a wonderful and important event. As we've heard today, youth advocacy is incredibly important and this is a useful opportunity for many students.

And also, thank you to our sponsors for supporting this endeavour, as well.

From a panel perspective, congratulations and thank you to every single speaker today. Every speech was fantastic and reflected a very high calibre of thinking, of preparation, but also of talent. And it's important to remember that these are 6 of the most remarkable speakers across a schoolwide, NSW-wide statewide competition, comprising of almost 300 school representatives that participated. So even getting to this stage is a remarkable achievement and I think warrants a huge round of applause from everyone tonight.

[applause]

All right. It's time to get into the more interesting parts of this-- not more interesting, equally interesting parts-- of this adjudication.

The panel here was unanimous. We all kind of shared the same ideas. I'll first talk about the general feedback on prepared speeches. We thought that the manner of every single speaker was confident was very, very poignant. And that is, of course, to be expected at a level such as this.

We also thought that the actual ways speakers wrote their speeches was beautiful. Everyone had nice turns of phrase, which meant that it was very easy to be engaged by every single idea that we were very lucky to listen to today.

We thought that every speaker brought us on a journey, but better speeches today had nice progressions from one idea to the next, where it was very easy for us to follow those ideas and the links between them, rather than speeches that might have gone back and forth between different ideas.

We also thought that whilst every speaker had a good exposition of ideas, generally better speakers were able to deal with the current debates and tensions within their ideas. Because we thought, at the end of the day, that no solution is necessarily a silver bullet perfect solution, and no argument is necessarily without its flaws and is universalisable. But the speeches that did better were those that were able to deal with the nuances, deal with the potential arguments that someone who might disagree with their position would prompt, and weave throughout and around and engage with those sorts of nuances better.

What we value today, then, was, of course, nuanced and balanced speeches, as well as clear logic paths throughout speaking, but also novelty in ideas. So we thought that looked like non-obvious examples, clear and unique explanations of why things happen that are unique to the speaker, as well. Those are our thoughts on the general rounds. But we thought that every single speech was really fantastic.

As to the impromptu rounds, today the topic we gave was a meeting of minds, and what was really good to see was a really wide set of interpretations of that topic. We thought that every speaker did a really good job of integrating the phrase into their speech and throughout their analysis in rather logical ways, which demonstrates, obviously, a great dexterity of their own minds. So congratulations to speakers.

We thought, though, that 2 things could have been improved. First, it would have been better for speakers to draw upon the meaning behind the topic, rather than just the words of the topic. So a meeting of the minds leading to things like consensus, rather than just talking about 2 people kind of agreeing or kind of being in the same spot about their way of thinking, and drawing and extrapolating upon that idea bit more as the genesis of what they're talking about.

And the second thing we thought could have been a bit more improved was the why question. So, for example, why should we care about this specific topic that you're telling us about? Why the phenomenon that you're dealing with actually happens in the first place? Those why questions help us understand the context of your speech a bit better. And we thought that speakers could have delved into those questions more thoroughly.

However, at the end of the day, there must be a winner, and although everyone here is a winner, one will progress to the national rounds. As to the winner's prepared speech, we thought that their structure was fantastic. We thought that their teasing out of ideas was really great. It was novel, sophisticated and used examples that were really interesting.

And alongside being able to take us on a persuasive journey, skilfully manipulating plain English into something more, we thought that they were able to use a personal connection and their personal stories to best illustrate why this was an important topic for all of us to understand.

As to their impromptu speeches, we thought that this was very well structured and it was very fluently delivered, which is, of course, extremely important for impromptu speeches. We thought that they attempted to use the topic in multiple ways. They had a strong hook at the start, and they had clear reasons as to why their topic was important.

And so please join me in congratulating from Hurlstone Agricultural School, the state champion of this year's Plain English Speaking Award, Olivia Wright. Well done.

[applause]