As usual, this year’s special two-day camp for high school debating saw students gather at Batemans Bay from around our region, which stretches from Wollongong to the Victorian border and inland as far as Jindabyne. Twelve students from Braidwood Central, in Years 7 to 11, attended. As well as everyone taking part in workshops, the Year 9&10 Finals of the Premiers Debating Challenge are held at the camp, and having won their zone competition, the Braidwood team of Jessie Kay, Haddie Davies, Ruby Gurling and Lily Munnings took part. Although they are largely a young team, they reached the Regional Final, taking on Smiths Hill, a selective school from Wollongong.
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In what is becoming something of a tradition, our Year 11 Students also reached the Senior Regional Final earlier in the year, again against Smiths Hill, and lost a close debate, and last year three of the members of this 9/10 team beat Smiths Hill and went on to the State Finals. So there was keen interest as everyone at the camp gathered to watch the two familiar rivals debate whether Australia should become a republic. The students have to learn to look at both sides of the topics they take on as affirmative or negative are decided by a coin toss, followed by an hour’s preparation. In this debate Braidwood had to make the case against change, the team arguing that Australia is already a fully independent country with strong ties in its own region and that the safeguard of a head of state removed from local politics helps protect us from the abuse of power.
These debates are judged by a panel of three adjudicators and, in a split decision, this year Braidwood lost the debate and so came second of the 27 teams who began the competition. At the conclusion of the camp, Haddie Davies was chosen as one of eight students, each from different schools from around the region, for the combined schools representative squad that will compete at Sydney University later in the year.
