In Term 2, I took part in two debates for All Saints’ in the West Australian Debating League. I took part in the Junior Category, which was for students from Years 9-10.

The first debate was a planned debate. The topic was “This House believes we would assassinate dictators”, and we the Affirmative side. The people in my team were Tunmise Aniyi as 1st Speaker and Cameron Anthony as 2nd Speaker, while I was given my usual role of 3rd Speaker.
We met and discussed the debate only once, so we were not very organised. However, we came up with some good arguments and ended up losing by only 2 points. This experience taught me to take initiative to call meetings in case someone leaves preparation until it’s too late.

The second debate was an impromptu debate (topics not released until 1 hour before debate), which was harder but interfered less with my school life as we didn’t have to prepare so much beforehand. Our team members consisted of Rebecca Lee as 1st Speaker, myself as 2nd speaker and Toby Landau as 3rd Speaker.
However, the opposing team didn’t turn up, so we automatically won.
To keep us occupied, the adjudicator versed us anyways. The topic was “This House believes the government to invest heavily in blue skies research”. Blue skies research is “research without a vital purpose”, meaning research that is done just for the sake of new knowledge and discoveries.
Despite the adjudicator’s knowledge and experience, the mental gymnastics of constructing three arguments to fill all three roles during the debate itself meant that he couldn’t gain an upper hand. We debated hard and well, so we ended up winning.

I very much enjoyed the debates, and I look forward to more debating opportunities in the second semester.