Wellington takes out debate championship
A capital trio has taken out the national debating competition, arguing to abolish Parliament’s 5 per cent threshold, writes Laura Wiltshire.
Kia ora to our younger readers – we have some news especially for you. We are starting a weekly page so that students can share stories and contribute opinion pieces offering their perspectives.
We are seeking contributions: News articles about something that happened at school, such as an achievement, a trip or a visitor. Snappy opinion pieces about a pressing issue, like climate change, social media or cancel culture . . . These might be written as part of a class assignment or independently. Written pieces should be between 200 and 500 words long. Photos (with captions) and cartoons are also welcome.
We will not be able to run all submissions in The Dominion Post but we hope to get as many as possible into this paper and our community titles.
Submissions to: schools@dompost.co.nz
Should New Zealand’s Parliament abolish the 5 per cent threshold? What about ‘‘girl boss’’ feminism? Is it a good or bad thing? It was topics like these that resulted in a Wellington debate team being crowned winners of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) national schools’ debating championship for 2021.
Seventeen-year-olds Ben Penno (Hutt International Boys’ School), Julia Randerson (Wellington High School) and Tony Huang (Onslow College) beat the Hawke’s Bay’s team in the final after four days of multiple debates with only an hour to prep for each.
Coached by Ailidh Leslie and Amy Spittal, the team argued in favour of abolishing the 5 per cent threshold to enter Parliament in the event final.
For Randerson, it was a topic she already cared deeply about but Penno and Huang had never given it much thought before the final on May 31.
‘‘I didn’t have strong opinions going into the debate but, at the end of the debate, I had very strong opinions towards my side,’’ Huang said.
The team argued that abolishing the threshold would allow more parties to enter Parliament, allowing it to better represent Aotearoa.
During the competition, held from May 28 to 31, they also debated the moot ‘‘this house regrets girl boss feminism’’, and whether New Zealand should create a publicly searchable database with everyone’s full name, income and wealth.
‘‘It sounds awful but it was really easy to affirm,’’ Randerson said.
‘‘We pushed for the idea that you can end pay gaps if people are able to hold other people accountable for how much they get paid,’’ Penno added.
He followed in his brother’s footsteps when he signed up for debate in year 9 but for both Randerson and Huang, it was just something new to try when they started high school.
However, all three agreed that debating had given them invaluable skills, even if it was just the ability to successfully argue for a full class extension on a history assignment.
The trio all recommended that students who were interested should try debate – with Huang joking that as a junior, if you could get through your speech without crying or having a panic attack, you were doing OK.
The group is used to debating against each other in their school teams (Penno remembers meeting Huang when the Onslow team turned up to debate Hutt International Boys’ School wearing onesies). But the social side was one of the benefits of the competition, they said.
Huang and Randerson have been picked for the national team, representing Aotearoa at the online World Schools Debating Championship, alongside Callum Hackston (Christ’s College), Emilie Horsfall (Havelock North High School), and Isaac Mellis-Glynn (Auckland Grammar School).