In a year like no other, students across the country have had to adapt quickly to change and learn to do things differently. The finals of the New Zealand Schools National Debating Championship called for just that!

Year 13 student, Grace Chang was selected into one of the teams of three from Auckland to debate at the national finals. Joining Isaac Mellis-Glynn, a former Boys’ School student, now at Auckland Grammar and Kunli Zhang from Kristin, the team was chosen in March for a national competition originally scheduled for May. With the country in lockdown back then, the competition was delayed to August.

At the start of last week, Grace was excited about the team’s upcoming weekend trip to Wellington to compete – then Alert Level 3 was announced just two days before they were due to fly! Not deterred, the weekend competition was quickly moved online and Grace’s team set about talking up a storm. Using Zoom as the platform, the debates were live-streamed on Youtube.

With a challenging set of motions at all levels of the competition, Grace’s team beat Canterbury  in round 1, beat Northland in round 2, lost to the Auckland White team in round 3, then beat Auckland White in round 4, before going on to beat Otago-Southland in round 5, to secure a place in the semi-finals where they beat Otago-Southland once again.

The team was back to face the fellow Auckland team in the grand final with the topical motion ‘Assuming that a Covid-19 vaccine would take 3-4 years to be developed, this house prefers a reopening of NZ's borders to the current approach.’  A coin toss put Grace’s team on the affirming side, which Grace said, ‘…originally caused us a great deal of stress but we managed to overcome this and won the grand final in a 3-2 split decision to become New Zealand champions!’

In the 33 years of competition, this is only the 5th time that Auckland has won with Wellington having won it 21 times out of those 33 years! The trophy is currently still in Wellington but the team hopes that eventually it will arrive in Auckland and they will be able to meet as a team for a photograph! Well done Grace!

The Motions Grace’s team debated:
Round 1: This house would significantly cull NZ's dairy herd
Round 2: This house regrets the prominence of sport in New Zealand’s national identity.
Round 3: Assuming it were possible, this house would allow you to trade in years of your life to enhance your skills, traits or appearance.
Round 4: This house believes the NZ Government should adopt a policy of always “calling out” China rather than seeking to appease or maintain positive relations
Round 5: This house supports a universal basic income
Semi-finals: This house regrets the state of modern democracy
Grand Final: Assuming a vaccine would take 3-4 years to be developed, this house prefers a reopening of NZ’s borders to the current approach

The full final debate may be watched here – Grace speaks at the 56 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvSrBKcEBAxcE2RL7d6bQ0A

Share this