This document summarizes debates from multiple rounds of an Easters debating tournament. It provides the motions debated, the results of each motion in an "aff wins, neg wins" format, and brief commentary on some of the motions. The motions covered a range of topics including political parties, criminal justice, workers' rights, identity politics, feminism, and healthcare/welfare policies. The document aims to analyze how balanced or weighted towards one side each motion may have been based on the results and issues discussed.
This document summarizes debates from multiple rounds of an Easters debating tournament. It provides the motions debated, the results of each motion in an "aff wins, neg wins" format, and brief commentary on some of the motions. The motions covered a range of topics including political parties, criminal justice, workers' rights, identity politics, feminism, and healthcare/welfare policies. The document aims to analyze how balanced or weighted towards one side each motion may have been based on the results and issues discussed.
This document summarizes debates from multiple rounds of an Easters debating tournament. It provides the motions debated, the results of each motion in an "aff wins, neg wins" format, and brief commentary on some of the motions. The motions covered a range of topics including political parties, criminal justice, workers' rights, identity politics, feminism, and healthcare/welfare policies. The document aims to analyze how balanced or weighted towards one side each motion may have been based on the results and issues discussed.
This document summarizes debates from multiple rounds of an Easters debating tournament. It provides the motions debated, the results of each motion in an "aff wins, neg wins" format, and brief commentary on some of the motions. The motions covered a range of topics including political parties, criminal justice, workers' rights, identity politics, feminism, and healthcare/welfare policies. The document aims to analyze how balanced or weighted towards one side each motion may have been based on the results and issues discussed.
Round 1 For a socially conservative MP, the plan
That, as a socially conservative Coalition would be (1) stay true to your principles, Member of Parliament, we would join and (2) exert more influence from the Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives crossbench. On the other hand, given the Party tight numbers on the house floor, you o 8 aff wins, 11 neg wins can plausibly accomplish both from That, as the Labor Party, we would within the Coalition anyway – while remove Bill Shorten as the leader before picking the prime minister. Slightly neg the next Federal election. weighted. o 5 aff wins, 11 neg wins Bill Shorten is relatively unpopular, and That we should implement a quota for maybe true Labor people want a more Indigenous Australians in Federal left-wing agenda, but he’s brought Parliament internal unity, and aren’t elections won o 11 aff wins, 4 neg wins in the centre? Of course there are transaction costs too, but in Opposition these are lower and sometimes necessary. In 2017 I think this was quite balanced, maybe a smidge neg-weighted. This chestnut has changed over the years, and it is coloured now by the dismissal of the Uluru Statement’s “Voice to Parliament” as a “third chamber,” and the fact we currently have three Indigenous Senators and two MPs. Aff has no choice but to declare the SQ insufficient and support a more-than- proportionate share of Indigenous MPs. The scale of Indigenous disadvantage probably still makes this a good Aff, but Neg clearly has a lot of political capital to play with as well. Round 2 Law students seem to have particularly That we support juries returning a strong views on juries, presumably after verdict of not guilty when they believe reading some disastrous case studies, the defendant is technically guilty but but I think most case studies of jury that a conviction would be unjust nullification paint it in a good light. Jurors o 3 aff wins, 10 neg wins take their role seriously and the That non-violent crimes committed by a requirement for unanimity is a good significant proportion of the population conservative check-and-balance. (e.g. internet piracy, jaywalking, Seems like a bad metric – these acts possession of marijuana, etc.) should be clearly cause various harms, and automatically decriminalised widespread complicity may be caused by o 9 aff wins, 13 neg wins lax enforcement among other things. If That we regret the rise of shows (e.g. any of them should be legalised, legalise Serial, Making a Murderer) that them through a deliberative political undertake detailed investigations into process that weighs up the pros and criminal cases cons. (The Aff case is a manageable o 5 aff wins, 10 neg wins libertarian attack on encroaching state power, but like most libertarian cases it works best in the abstract.) Probably depends on whether the show in question is authentic and rigorous (perhaps even causing a cold case to be reopened by police) or slanted and presented more for entertainment. There are of course (dubious) structural reasons for both Aff and Neg to advance about why one type or the other is the predominant type. Not my favourite debate but I think balanced. Round 3 Debaters are fairly pro-worker, but the That the Government should tax intended effect is less innovation, companies’ use of technology that is unintended effects can include worse job replacing human labour losses if (for example) companies close o 19 aff wins, 8 neg wins down and restart, and Neg can mitigate That we should allow young people to the SQ job losses as well by counter- opt out of specific protections of modelling retraining etc. Slightly neg workers’ rights when applying for jobs weighted. (e.g. minimum wage, maximum working Surely a recipe for exploitation. A more hours, penalty rates) balanced version is, “TWS substantially o 1 aff win, 8 neg wins (& 34 aff lower labour regulations for young vetos) people in areas with high youth That the Australian Government should unemployment.” focus on increasing accessibility and The security v flexibility trade-off here is reliability of rental properties (e.g. long- quite balanced – people have relatively term leases, greater protections for few intuitions about which is more tenants), rather than on the accessibility valuable, all else being equal. This topic of home ownership did receive some 27 neg vetos, but I o 7 aff wins, 7 neg wins suspect that is because neg teams thought the other two motions were weighted in their favour. Round 4 One of my all-time favourite topics and That we regret the argument of identity in my view exceptionally balanced. The politics that you only have a politically argument has created spaces and legitimate position on an issue if you are platforms for marginalised groups to a member of the affected group have a voice, but it is has also deepened o 14 aff wins, 16 neg wins divides between groups and arguably That we regret the dominance of sex- helped spur a white nationalist backlash. positive feminism There were 14 aff vetos compared to 7 o 6 aff wins, 10 neg wins (29 aff neg vetos – an example, I think, of vetos) debaters’ progressive sympathies getting That we should force sporting leagues ahead of their strategic judgement. that have both male and female The victims of sex-positive feminism competitions to pay the players equally always seem more sympathetic to me regardless of gender than the beneficiaries, so I would expect o 3 aff wins, 1 neg win (40 neg this to be aff weighted. The word vetos) “dominance” also tends to help the regret side because they can take the low burden of liking sex-positive feminism (or whatever else) in principle but merely wishing it did not crowd out so many alternatives. I think the arguments against this tend to be pretty unpalatable so I would also expect aff weighted. Round 5 Placebos are real, and autonomy is That we should allow patients to access prized in medicine, although the idea of treatments which have passed safety millions of middle-income customers trials, but have not been proven to be shelling out cash for vitamin water effective strikes most of us as mildly exploitative. o 17 aff wins, 12 neg wins If taxpayer dollars were involved this That the cashless debit card should be would be clearly wasteful and maybe expanded to all welfare recipients in worse, but if it’s customers’ own money Australia (and ads are regulated, which aff can o 5 aff wins, 9 neg wins (24 aff model) then most of us are liberal vetos) enough to accept this state of affairs. That we should remove all legal Slightly aff weighted. protections on the confessional seal Debating is sympathetic to welfare o 3 aff wins, 4 neg wins (29 neg recipients so any measures to restrict vetos) their autonomy tend to have an uphill battle. Neg weighted. Obviously no one wants crimes to go unreported, but if the seal is known to be only semi-confidential then criminals are unlikely to confess to priests at all. At that point I think there remains a fairly marginal and speculative discussion about the impact within the church of confidential confessions of crimes. Probably balanced. Round 6 This might not be the clearest topic in That centrist US media outlets should the world, but I read it as, “Is American actively combat the notion of American exceptionalism bad, and if so, should exceptionalism media outlets – at least those without o 7 aff wins, 4 neg wins (29 neg pre-existing political commitments – play vetos) a role in combatting it?” I suspect most That, as a progressive person or Australian debaters are sceptical of organisation, we would not advise or American exceptionalism, although not support the Trump campaign in any too much. Also the burden on media capacity outlets here sounds more onerous at o 10 aff wins, 13 neg wins (18 aff first glance than it really is: if it is vetos) established that American That, as China, we would aggressively exceptionalism = bad, then it would be sanction North Korea very unfashionable to say independent o 10 aff wins, 6 neg wins (21 aff news sources should passively propagate vetos) it. So I’d expect Aff weighted. Aff gets the moral purity of a boycott, Neg points out someone worse will take your place, and Aff replies you can work for change from outside. The question of which approach is best for making change is a central question in politics and I think a very balanced clash. I believe a new spate of successful missile tests were in the headlines at the time, and China was (and still largely is) perceived as being the pivotal actor in altering Kim Jong Un’s behaviour. But what does China gain? It certainly stands to lose big if the Kim regime falls: a mass migration crisis and perhaps a shared border with a US ally. So the Aff case must be that the regime will be deterred but not destabilised, and China will get the credit (as well as the security) for at least pausing the nuclear weapons program, while gaining even more leverage over NK. The burden seems more complex for Aff so I’d rather be Neg (I suspect the veto count is inflated by the IR aspect).