From the 27th to the 30th May, the 2022 National NZIER Debating Competition took place, involving 14 regional teams from across the country.

Sophie Bowmar (Y13) formed the Otago team with Lily Knox (St Hilda’s) and Cam Fraser (King's High). Sophie Davis (Y12) also represented Otago in the first round of this tournament, travelling to Queenstown as an active reserve after training with the squad in the lead up. This is the 8th consecutive year that Columba Colleges students have been in a regional team and gone to the Nationals.

The tournament saw the team debate six rounds on an impressive range of unprepared motions, from free education to indigenous tourism, illiberal state interdependence, sports vetoes, bipartisan coalitions, and record labels. Despite taking two very close losses, Otago ended on an impressive four wins. This put them in break contention to make it through to the semi-finals; however, in an incredibly narrow margin they  missed out by just 0.1 of a speaker point, and as a result finished in 5th place.

In addition to Otago’s achievements, Sophie Bowmar was also named in the New Zealand Debating Squad. She joins selected speakers from Auckland, Waikato, Kahurangi-Marlborough and Bay of Plenty to form the squad. She will be a reserve to the team for the World tournament in the Netherlands in August but will train with the squad and join them in speaking at the international lead-up Pre-Worlds tournament at Asia World Schools’ in July. This is a great achievement that is reflective of the very long effort she has put in, and we wish her and Team New Zealand the best of luck.