2018 National Finals Report and Results
The 2018 National Finals of the New Zealand Schools’ Debating Championships were held from the 25th – 28th of May at Victoria University of Wellington.
Twelve regional teams from Northland, Auckland, Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Hawke’s Bay, Central North Island, Wellington, Kahurangi/Marlborough, Canterbury and Otago/Southland took part in the competition. This was the first year that Bay of Plenty competed in the competition. The regional teams comprised the best speakers from the hundreds of debaters who competed at various regional competitions held earlier in the year.
Teams competed in seven preliminary round debates on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Victoria University’s Pipitea Campus. In the preliminary rounds the teams debated the following topics:
- This house would ban unions for workers in high skilled occupations
- This house believes that settlements with indigenous groups should focus on current disadvantage rather than historical wrongs
- This house would create Government controlled entity to directly undertake housing construction projects
- This house would require sperm/egg banks to identify the biological parent at the request of the child
- This house believes that the Democrats should prioritise traditional economic and social issues (e.g. cost of living, healthcare, education) over concerns about Trump’s presidency when communicating to voters
- This house believes that all art should be displayed with the artist remaining anonymous
- This house supports nationalism
After the seven preliminary rounds, the top four teams were Waikato, who broke first on six wins, Otago-Southland (five wins), Auckland White (five wins) and Auckland Blue (four wins).
Bay of Plenty and Wellington Gold were also on four wins but tied with the exact same number of speaker points and win points in fifth place.
On Monday morning the semi-finals were held at Queen Margaret College and St Mary’s College.
The motion for the semi-finals was: “this house supports sanctions being imposed on states that develop nuclear weapons programmes.” Auckland Blue defeated Waikato in a 4-1 split decision and Otago-Southland defeated Auckland White in a 2-1 split decision.
The Grand Final was hosted for the first time by Christopher Bishop MP in the Legislative Council Chamber of Parliament. We were delighted to have Justice Kos, President of the Court of Appeal, attend the Grand Final.
The motion for the final was that “This house would require MPs who leave or are expelled from their party caucus to resign from Parliament.”
Otago-Southland affirmed the motion and Auckland Blue negated. After an excellent and very close debate, Auckland Blue were declared the winners in a 4-3 decision.
After the Grand Final the members of the 2018 New Zealand Schools Debating team were announced, competing at World Schools in Zagreb, Croatia. The five member team is made up of Nicholas Goodman (Hamilton Boys’ High School), Lydia Joseph (Columba College), Sabrina Swerdloff (Otago Girls’ High School), Alan Zhang (Macleans College) and William Price (Westlake Boys’ High School).
The best speaker of the Championships was Nicholas Goodman, with Lydia Joseph being named captain of the New Zealand Schools’ Debating Team.
The New Zealand Schools’ Debating Council is grateful to everyone who contributed to making the Championships such a memorable weekend – adjudicators, coaches, chairpeople, and conveners Geneva Roy and Samuel Penno.
Here are the full list of results from Nationals 2018
Winners: Auckland Blue
Grace Baylis (Macleans College)
Yang-Fan Yun (Macleans College)
David Zhu (Macleans College)
Coaches: Kayla Grant & Aditya Vasudevan
Runners-Up: Otago-Southland
Lydia Joseph (Columba College)
Bridget Scott (Columba College)
Sabrina Swerdloff (Otago Girls’ High School)
Coaches: Joe Ascroft & Emily Williams
Promising speaker:
Grace Baylis (Macleans College)
Highly Commended speakers:
Peter Lang (Scots College)
Bridget Scott (Columba College)
Abbie Pool (St Kentigern College)
Rosemary Dixon Cup for the Most Promising Speaker:
Dominic Beaton (St John’s College)
Reserves to the 2018 New Zealand Schools’ Debating Team:
Day-eth Smit (Waikato Diocesan School for Girls)
David Zhu (Auckland Grammar)
2018 New Zealand Schools’ Debating Team:
Nicholas Goodman (Hamilton Boys’ High School)
Lydia Joseph (Columba College)
Sabrina Swerdloff (Otago Girls’ High School)
Alan Zhang (Macleans College)
William Price (Westlake Boys’ High School)
Coaches: Hamish Saunders and Nicholas Cross
New Zealand Schools’ Debating Team 2018 – (left to right, Christopher Bishop MP, Hamish Saunders, Nick Cross, William Price, Nicholas Goodman, Alan Zhang, Sabrina Swerdloff, Lydia Joseph, Justice Kos)
Andrew Stockley Cup for the Captain of the 2018 New Zealand Schools’ Debating Team:
Lydia Joseph (Columba College)
Russell McVeagh Cup for the Best Speaker at the 2018 National Championships:
Nicholas Goodman (Hamilton Boys’ High School)