26/10/2026
Mullumbimby High school's Year 7 Debating team went up against Toormina High school in the regional finals of the Premier's Debating challenge on Monday 26 October.
The winner would secure a place in the State Championships in Sydney; the loser would have their journey end. Mullumbimby won the toss and debated as the affirmative on the topic 'That all kids should be required to do community service for one day every fortnight'. Mullum's young team of Lily Gunther-Sheppard, Rotem Eldar, Purdey Killips and Aleea Thompson, performed admirably creating a model that would see the policy introduced in Term 1 of 2027 and would require students to volunteer 1 hour a week, after school, with registered groups who would provide a variety of areas for students to work in. They highlighted the benefits of students working together for common goals and learning how to give back to their community whilst learning important skills. Toormina accused them of creating a child labour system that would take students from their schooling, sports teams and jobs.
Once again Mullum utilised all their preparation from Mr Clarke, Hazel Beaton and Eleanor Sena to outthink the opposition through their model. By making the system work outside of school, Mullum countered much of this argument and by highlighting the benefits of helping older people, people with disabilities, community groups etc they reframed the positive benefits for all participants. Toormina was reduced to hyperbole and conflated examples of the horrors of helping others. One example given of a fictious student being forced to clean under 'backbreaking' conditions unsupervised spilling acid in their eye was a bridge too far for this talented team and they continued to hammer Toormina with their hyperbolic statements.
Both teams spoke incredibly well but, in the end, Mullum was victorious and now we travel to Sydney to compete in the top eight of the State.
This team has grown so much and performed so well. In each debate one of them has been responsible for the win and in this debate, it was Purdey as third speaker who had her best performance of the competition with a detailed and thorough rebuttal of Toormina's arguments and a great summation of the groundwork laid out by Lily, Rotem and Aleea. This was an incredible debate, and I look forward to the journey of this group in the Championship rounds.
