Easters

Easters comprises 6 preliminary rounds of debates, followed by a 16 team knock-out finals series.

The aims of the Easter Championship are:

• to encourage friendly and informal competition amongst Australian debaters.
• to provide debaters who would not normally be selected for an intervarsity competition with the opportunity to compete with debaters from other universities.
• to encourage participation from universities not already participating.
• to promote adjudication through feedback to trainee adjudicators 

Style of Debate

Easters style debating consists of two teams of three speakers each, one team taking the role of the Affirmative, and the other the Negative. Speeches are heard alternately from the Affirmative and Negative, and have a duration of six to eight minutes. Both teams are given 30 minutes to prepare their speeches, from the time the topic is announced. 

Unlike Australs, Easters does not feature reply speeches.  In all other respects the style of debate is identical to Australs style, providing valuable experience for novice debaters and adjudicatorsin Australs style.

The rules of debate can be found in the Australia-Asia Debating Handbook, which can be viewed by linking here {link to training page}. Other rules, including the definitional rule are contained in Article 41 of the AIDA constitution

Novice Requirement

The Easter Championship is primarily a novice competition, with a requirement that two-thirds of each team be comprised of novice debaters.

A novice debater at Easters is a person who has not debated at Worlds or Australs, and is debating for the first or second time at an Easter Intervarsity Debating Championship.