Free Speech Union New Zealand Schools’ British Parliamentary Debating Championship 2024
On the 7th and 8th of December, the New Zealand Schools’ Debating Council hosted the Free Speech Union New Zealand Schools’ British Parliamentary Debating Championship 2024. We were very pleased to have had 64 participating teams, making this the largest edition of the championship since it was first held in 2018. Students from the Far North in Kerikeri, right down the country to Dunedin, participated in the tournament. Thanks to the support of the Free Speech Union, we were able to make participation in the tournament free of charge for all students, as well as provide prizes for the top performing teams.
Congratulations to Havelock North High School (Isabella McKeefry and Yuval Sela) for winning the championship, and to Tauranga Boys College (Ollie Farquharson and James Bunyan) and two teams from Kristin School (Catherine Chen and Matthew Zheng; Bryan Hua and Jacob Johnston) for reaching the Grand Final.
Further congratulations to the Top 10 speakers of the tournament:
1st: Catherine Chen (Kristin School)
2nd=: Bruce Zhang (Macleans College) and Sam Allan (Burnside High School)
4th: Matthew Zheng (Kristin School)
5th=: Jamie Pett (Avondale College) and Isabella McKeefry (Havelock North High School)
7th: Ollie Farquharson (Tauranga Boys College)
8th=: Kyden Chan (Saint Kentigern College) and James Bunyan (Tauranga Boys College)
10th: Siobhan Murphy (St Cuthbert’s College)
Students debated the following topics:
- Round 1: This house believes that parents should encourage their children to be competitive.
- Round 2: You are a young, idealistic Green Party member. One day you accidentally uncover incontrovertible evidence of serious criminal misconduct by a high level Green MP, which the party has been actively covering up. This house would leak the evidence to media.
- Round 3: This house opposes attempts by the international community to economically isolate China (e.g. “de-risking” supply chains, increased tariffs on goods made in China, excluding China from free-trade agreements or not seeking out free-trade agreements with China).
- Round 4: Assuming feasability, this house would allow individuals to access their own life statistics.
- Round 5: This house opposes the centrality of sport to national identity.
- Quarter-finals: This house supports “breaking up” tech giants (e.g. Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Meta, Amazon, Apple).
- Semi-finals: This house prefers fiction which is escapist to fiction which reflects reality.
- Grand Final: This house supports abolishing all borders.
Full results of the tournament can be found here.
Well done to all students for giving the British Parliamentary format a go, and we hope that it served as useful development for the upcoming 2025 Regionals season!