The Secondary Schools Debating Council has announced:

Thirty six of New Zealand’s top secondary school debaters will gather in Wellington this weekend for the National Finals of the Russell McVeagh New Zealand Schools’ Debating Championships, hosted by Victoria University of Wellington.

The two best teams will meet in the Grand Final on Monday 12 August debating “This House would not prosecute people who download and share entertainment media on the Internet.”

The Debating Council is partnering with InternetNZ for this year’s Grand Final, to encourage public debate and education over internet issues.

Desley Horton, the President of the Schools’ Debating Council said that the Grand Final should be a great debate on a highly topical issue: “As we move into a digital age, young people in particular are increasingly questioning whether or not our laws are fit for purpose and up to date. It’ll be fascinating to see what New Zealand’s brightest young minds have to say about this issue.” …

Teams from Wellington, Auckland, Canterbury, Otago-Southland, Hawke’s Bay, Northland, Central North Island, Waikato and Kahurangi-Marlborough will take part in seven preliminary rounds of debates over the weekend at Victoria University of Wellington’s Law School.

Students will only find out the topic and what side they are to argue one hour before the debates.

The Grand Final between the top two teams at the Championships will take place in the Legislative Council Chamber at Parliament on Monday 12 August at 2.30pm, hosted by Hon Peter Dunne. 

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The NZ Initiative has three debates coming up, where some of NZ’s best debaters will argue on topical issues. They are:

• That NZ should be going for population growth, Wed 14 August, Ernst & Young, Auckland
• That alcohol should not be taxed more than soft drinks, Thu 15 August,  Mac’s Brewery, Wellington
• That if you’re young and ambitious you should leave NZ, Thu 22 August, City Gallery, Wellington

I’m on the post debate panel for the alcohol debate, where we comment on the arguments made by the teams, and offer some observations of our own. The debates are free to attend.

Stuff reports:

An international debating competition held in Wellington has been criticised for mooting that girls should be told to drink responsibly to avoid sexual assault.

The New Zealand British Parliamentary Debating Championships hosted by Victoria University last weekend debated that “This House, as a parent, would tell their daughter to drink responsibly to avoid sexual assault”.

The topic left female debaters “forced to defend their own rights to consume alcohol and have consensual sex”, a spectator, who wished to remain anonymous, said. 

The tournament was held on behalf of the New Zealand Universities Debating Council, and included teams from around the country, and some from Australia.

The spectator said many of the female participants in the tournament were adamant they did not wish to engage in the debate, but were pressured into “hardening up” and arguing the motion.

“What resulted were many of the male debaters literally laughing at their female peers as they tried to defend their own rights to consume alcohol and have consensual sex, and there was also much joking about the circumstances in which sexual assault occurs,” she said.

Participants were reduced to tears both during and after the debate, she said.

“One woman began crying during the debate which she participated in, and others were crying after the debate, for reasons ranging from personal experiences with rape, to the sheer shock of feeling they had to defend those rapists.”

Debate topics across the weekend were set by chief adjudicator Stephen Whittington, a former member of the Victoria University Debating Society.

Considering the sensitivity of the topic, he discussed the motion with five other adjudicators before setting it, he said.

Each of them agreed it was acceptable for the purposes of a debating tournament, Whittington said.

“As part of that discussion we discussed what the purpose of debating was, and as part of that discussion we talked about the fact that debating often requires people to defend ideas or arguments that they don’t personally agree with, even in circumstances where people do in fact have very strong views about those issues.”

Debating the morality of abortion, or whether Israel had a right to exist as a country, were instances in which people could have strong views on a topic and be forced to take the other side of the argument, he said.

Whittington said the idea for the premise of the debate was based on an article in Slate magazine, written by Emily Yoffe.

The view that women shouldn’t drink to avoid being sexually assaulted is a neanderthal one. However I don’t think you do anyone a service by saying that such a view can not be the topic of a debate. Far better to allow the topic to be debated and have talented debaters expose the massive flaws in that argument.

As Whittington says, many debating topics are controversial and may involve deeply personal issues such as abortion.

From Brent Edwards:

The EPMU Press Freedom Debate will be held at the Backbencher Pub on Thursday, May 7. Doors open at 5pm but the fun debate itself will start about 7.15 to 7.30pm.

The debate will raise money for the Media Safety and Solidarity Fund which supports press freedom and journalists’ safety in the Asia-Pacific region. Specifically the fund helps pay the education costs of about 100 children of journalists murdered in the Philippines and about 20 children of journalists murdered in Nepal. We have just agreed to fund a similar project in Pakistan.

The moot is: That only new MPs have anything worthwhile to say.

The affirmative: Chris Bishop, James Shaw, Marama Fox
The negative: Peter Dunne, Metiria Turei, Chris Hipkins
The chair: Carol Hirschfeld

The tickets cost $25 each.

Contact me on brent.edwards@radionz.co.nz

I’ve been to a few of these (and even been in one of the teams) and they’re usually pretty funny (and rude) affairs.

The NZ Initiative has announced:

Next Generation Debates Semi-final in Wellington
Tuesday, 11 August 2015 | 5:30 pm | Register for Wellington
Where: Mac’s Function Centre, Te Aro room, 4 Taranaki Street
Moot: “This house would legalise euthanasia”
Panellists: Hon Maryan Street (former Labour MP) and Dr Stephen Child of NZMA

Next Generation Debates Semi-final in Auckland
Wednesday, 12 August 2015 | 5:45 pm | Register for Auckland 
Where: The University of Auckland Business School, 12 Grafton Road, Owen G Glenn Building, Level 0 Foyer 071
Moot: “This house believes that economic growth always comes at the expense of people and the environment”
Panellists: Sir Roger Douglas and Sue Bradford

Next Generation Debates Grand-final in Wellington
Wednesday, 19 August 2015 | 5:30 pm | Register for the Final 
Where: Te Wharewaka Function Centre, 15 Jervois Quay, Wellington Waterfront
Moot: “This house believes that high house prices make us poorer as a nation”
Panellists: Phil Twyford, MP, Labour Party Housing Spokesperson and Andrew King, Executive Officer, New Zealand Property Investors Federation

Great topics and good choices of panelists. Well worth going to.