ISDA Debating – Round 2 vs St. Catherine’s

J. G. Nicholas – Captain of Debating

Last Friday, Shore hosted St Catherine’s on topics related to ‘Social Issues,’ and in an impressive show of diligence and skill, were victorious in six of the eight debates of the night. 

Spurred on by the re-introduction of post-debate supper, our Year 7’s went to work affirming the topic ‘That there should be a mandatory retirement age for politicians.’ With notable improvements to their speech structure and ordering of arguments, the boys came out on top in an excellent first-ever victory. While they used evidence well, there is still room for improvement in explaining why their ideas matter. Invigorated by their success in the opening debate of the season, our Year 8’s found themselves affirming the same topic as the Year 7’s, but unfortunately were unable to secure the win. Despite putting forward a solid model, whereby politicians must retire at 70 years of age, they needed a more nuanced perspective in responding to St Catherine’s arguments about the representation for the elderly demographic. 

Following a narrow loss in their first debate of the season, the Year 9 team was rearing to start when they read the topic, ‘That we should ban gaming machines e.g., poker machines.’ Affirming the topic, the boys loyally stuck to their arguments, despite a futile St. Catherine’s attempt to strawman the debate into including arcade machines. While all three speakers impressed with their clear, well formulated arguments, Jayden Pan ended all hopes of victory for St. Cath’s with a formidable third speaker speech that typified the strong showing from the boys. Unfortunately, our Year 10s went down affirming ‘That companies should be forced to publicise all employee’s salaries,’ the boys still on the hunt for their first win of the season. 

Despite their continued unwillingness to attend the pivotal Captain’s Slideshow, the Senior B’s handed St. Catherine’s a loss in another clinical victory punctuated by their nuanced arguments and refined manner, affirming ‘That pill testing should be legalised in Australia.’ The boys focusing on the harms of not testing, the burden of proof lay with St Catherine’s to prove the harms testing would cause that would outweigh the status quo of deaths due to poisonous chemicals or overdosing that currently saturate the market. While the B’s could’ve more clearly characterised the nature of drug use at festivals, primarily being casual, younger users, the boys’ clarity of expression and responsiveness in rebuttal led them to decisive victory, the standout speaker being Michael Kwak. The Senior B’s should be proud of their effort last Friday, particularly when considering the absence of young gun Ethan Tan, who was unable to attend the debate for undisclosed reasons. 

Affirming the same topic, the Senior A’s continued to show their experience and poise in a dominant performance that saw Shore prevail once more. Enticed by the thought of the stacked stands of the Playfair that lay before us, Lachie Hunt immediately got to work in the prep room, his consolidation of power reminiscent of Stalin’s brutal rise in the wake of Lenin’s death. Brimming with confidence, and the encyclopaedic topical knowledge of Blake Fite, Aaron Rucinski was calm and collected in his delivery of the model, focused on harm minimisation, and the urgent need to reduce drug overdose and poisoning. Despite continued personal attacks and emotionally charged use of gesture from St. Cath’s, Blake did well to demolish their case at second, laying the groundwork for a smooth victory. Deploying his famed four-and-a-half-minute introduction strategy, Jimmy Nicholas closed out a Senior A’s domination, with useful clarification of the model to combat some of the interesting straw manning laid out by the opposition. While the debate was a high-quality outing, the boys will be focusing on their time management and ordering of ideas coming into this week’s Loretto debate. 

Debating at Shore is well-known for its depth, which was on full display in two wins from both Year 7 and 8’s SSD teams, whose week over week improvement has been remarkable. This week we are at Shore again hosting Loreto Kirribilli. All audience members are welcomed and appreciated. Last week a special thanks went to Edward Godfrey and Callum Vujanovic for Chairing these debates. We really appreciated their time and efforts. Anyone who is keen to chair for the debates on March 24 against Brigidine, please contact Mrs Melville via Teams.