Ladies and Gentlemen … | Year 7 News @ Joeys

Written by Dom McDonald (Gerroa)

On the 19^th of March 2010, 4 boys who have set their sights on noble goals embarked on what would turn out to be one of the toughest debates of their lives. The team was made up of Mac Waugh (1^st Speaker), Dom McDonald (2^nd Speaker), Nick McDonald (3^rd Speaker) and James Pope (4^th Speaker).

The team so far in the season had been extremely successful winning 3 from 3 of their last debates and wanting another win, they turned up to the Brother Michael Naughtin Theatre to face up to Knox Grammar in the fourth round of the ISDA competition. They shook hands with the Knox boys and received their topic: “That America has too much influence on Australia”. Joeys was Affirmative and Knox was Negative.

And so both teams moved into their prep room with a tense feeling knowing that this would be a tough debate.

An hour later the Joeboys emerged, pulled on their blazers and were all fired up, ready to stand shoulder to shoulder until the very last man and then entered Room 304 for an exciting debate.

Mac Waugh opened the debate with some perfectly structured statements about how the USA influences us on economic issues, and how the Australian Media is continuously becoming more like the American Media.

Dom McDonald then continued the Joeys case, speaking about political pressure put on Australia by the USA, how the USA influences us through times of war and hardship and how Australia is losing its British Identity because of US influence.

Nick McDonald then concluded the Joeys case by summarising Mac and Dom’s speeches then having some excellent rebuttal against the good cases put forward by Knox.

As the Debate concluded the adjudicator asked us all to wait outside as she made her decision, the minutes ticked passed slower than when you’re sitting in the infirmary all day — after 10 minutes we were invited back in.