Scotch College

Debating success

Debating Association of Victoria’s competition.

This year Scotch has again been the regional host school for the Debating Association of Victoria’s competition.

What does being the host school mean? A BIG night, with all the debating teams from PLC, St Catherines, Ruyton, MLC, Trinity, Lauriston, Bialik and Fintona coming to Scotch to take part in the inter-school competition. On each debating night, 58 debates take place, utilising all upstairs and downstairs rooms in the quadrangle. Showcase debates take place in the Fraser Smith Theatre, which is now affectionately known as “Centre Court”.

Scotch entered 19 teams of boys from Year 8 through to Year 12.

There are five rounds of debates with a diverse range of topics, such as:

“That we have more to fear from George W. Bush than we do from the axis of evil”

“That Australians should mourn 26 January as Invasion Day”

“That smokers should not have access to Medicare”

Year 11 and Year 12 debaters are put under extra pressure by undertaking secret topic debates in some of the rounds. This means that the teams have one hour only to prepare before the debate commences.

The Finals Series

2004 has been a particularly successful year for our debaters, with five teams going through the season undefeated and so representing our region in the State Finals.

The successful teams are :

A1 (yr 12) – Tim Hickman, Thomas Kelly, Anthony Kung, Ed Tudor

C1 (yr 10) –Ben Andrews, Nick Jane, Ashish Sharma, Nicholas Tam

C2 ((yr 10) –Jonathan Chia, Tom Sutherland, Oliver Waters, Ben Wong

D1 (yr 9) – Conrad Banasik, Henry Hedinger, James Leung, Jun Qu

D5 (yr 8) – Lachie Baird, Luke Dawson, David Dower, James Sutherland

We wish these boys all the best for the series as they come up against finals teams from 18 other regions from throughout Victoria.

Swannie Awards for “Best Speaker”

These are regional Awards, named after Australian debating champion Alan Swanwick. They are awarded to speakers with the highest average speaker score, having completed at least three debates, in each grade and region. There are thousands of students in the competition, with only one hundred speakers receiving Swannie Awards. Congratulations to TWO winners from Scotch this year, Nicholas Tam in Year 10 and Jun Qu in Year 9.

United Nations Youth Association Thant Trophy

This is an elite debating competition named after U Thant, former Secretary General of the United Nations. The debate uses rules of parliamentary procedure, whilst debating actual issues, which are part of normal UN Security Council deliberations. Competitors are expected to follow diplomatic protocols.

Debating Finalists Back row L-R Ashish Sharma, Ben Andrews, Ed Tudor, Tom Kelly, Tim Hickman, Anthony Kung, Tom Sutherland, Jonathan Chia Middle row L-R Nick Jane, Nick Tam, James Sutherland, Lachie Baird, Jun Qu, James Leung, Oliver Waters Front row Conrad Banasik, Henry Hedinger Absent David Dower, Luke Dawson, Ben Wong

Two of our teams have gone through to the finals, which will take place at the Victorian Legislative Council on 7 September. Good Luck to Tim Hickman and Tom Kelly (Year 12) who will represent China and to Stephen Muirhead and Andrew Curry (Year 11) who will represent Brazil.

Congratulations to all the boys who represented Scotch debating in 2004 and “Good Luck” to all the finalists.

Ms Suzette Boyd
Teacher In Charge of Debating