Another Fantastic Pre-Australs!

Run in conjunction with the Auckland University Debating Society, the Fourth Free Debate Pre-Australs Competition was held in Auckland in July.  Pre-Australs is a small, friendly tournament for debaters with limited opportunities to practice in English to warm up before the Australasian Championships.

This year, Free Debate trainers Seamus Coleman, Phil Barker and Amit Golder participated in what was the largest and most successful Pre-Australs yet! Participants came from across Australasia and this year saw a greater amount of debaters from Northeast Asia than ever before.

Teams debated a diverse range of topics which included:

• That we should implement gender quotas on the boards of all publicly listed companies;
• That we should elect all judges;
• That the state should remove morbidly obese children from the care of their parents; and
• That all major sporting leagues should have a salary cap (which produced a truly amazing and fascinating debate!).

As part of the tournament, all debaters, as well as the adjudicators and Free Debate trainers participated in an issues forum. We discussed topics ranging from whaling to pornography to the stylistic preferences of adjudicators from across the Australasian region. The issues forum again proved a massive success with all participants – allowing everyone involved to learn from each other, and benefit from the experiences and ideas of a room full of very engaged individuals.

The Grand Final was a hotly contested debate between Korea University 1 and Macau University on the topic “That the West should require Israel to forfeit its nuclear weapons”. The Korea University team, comprised of Seth Kang, Claire Minyoung Kim, Junbin Yun, won the debate and the tournament! This team then went on to win the ESL division of the Australasian Championships.

Congratulations to all debaters who took part in the competition, and special thanks to all trainers and adjudicators who helped to make the competition a success. Free Debate’s special thanks go to Nupur Upadhyay from Auckland University whose tireless efforts, professionalism and constant smile were crucial to the competition. See you all in 2011!

Free Debate Pre-Australs 2009!

From 29 June to 1 July 2009, Free Debate, in conjunction with Monash Australs, welcomed 56 debaters and 12 trainers from 6 countries across Asia to the third Free Debate Pre-Australs Tournament!

The tournament involved 5 rounds, semi and grand finals, a fun-filled championship dinner as well as two training forums - focusing on debating skills, strategies, tips and tactics.

Congratulations to the winning team from the University of Tokyo comprised of Dai Oba, Ryotaro Tanaka and Atsushi Inatsuka. Congratulations also to the best speaker of the tournament, Alex Keen from MMU Melaka.

Thanks to all the tournament participants for making this such an enjoyable and high quality event. Particular thanks to our amazing collection of trainers. These trainers included: Kim Little, Liz Sheargold, Rob Koh, Lynne Featonby, Lucia Pietropaoli, Tim Sonnreich, Kylie Lane, Melany Tejda, Logandran Balavijendran, Sharmilla Parmanand, Tim Jeffrie and Julia Bowes!

And special thanks to the Monash Australs team who helped us out with logistics!

2006 Pre-Australs ESL Results

We're pleased to announce that Keio University (Masako, Keiko and Rie) were the winners of the 2006 Pre-Australs ESL Invitational. The winning team was assisted by Tim Sonnreich.

Equal best speakers were Melanie (University of Indonesia) and Masako (Keio University).

2006 Pre-Australs ESL Invitational

Free Debate is helping to organise a warm-up tournament for ESL teams on Saturday and Sunday 1-2 July 2006, just ahead of the Australiasian Intervarsity Debating Championships ("Australs"). Australs is being hosted by Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand and Free Debate member Kylie Lane will be the tournament's Chief Adjudicator.

The Pre-Australs ESL Invitational is a dedicated ESL competition especially for inexperienced speakers. Free Debate is organising a large pool of experienced adjudicators to help coach teams. You can get more information on the competition by e-mailing preaustrals2006@gmail.com or visiting this link.