The AustralAsian Intervarsity Debating Championships are the world’s largest 3-on-3 debating tournament, and the second largest debating tournament in the world.  It is held in early July each year, with upwards of 100 teams competing for the title of AustralAsian champions. Australs has been hosted in Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.

About Australs
The Championship comprises at least 7 preliminary rounds of debates, and 4 finals rounds, including an English as a Second Language Competition. 

The aims of the Australasian Intervarsity are:

1. To further debating in the AustralAsian region.
2. To promote the exchange of ideas and skills between participants and the wider community.
3. To encourage participation from universities not already participating.

Style of Debate
The AustralAsian Intervarsity Debating Championships has its own unique debating style, generally referred to as Australs style.

Australs style debating consist 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. At the conclusion of the six substantive speeches, each team gets the opportunity to deliver a short Reply Speech of four minutes which wraps up the debate for each side. Both teams are given 30 minutes to prepare their speeches, from the time the topic is announced.

Variants of Australs style are used all over the world, including the World Schools’ Debating Championship, which uses Australs style with the addition of points of information.

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 28 of the AIDA constitution.