User:Joshua Taylor 1988/sandbox

The Australian Inter-varsity Debating Championships (known colloquially as "Easters") is an annual debating tournament for teams from universities around Australia, and occasionally New Zealand. It is one of the world's largest debating tournaments, and the largest held regularly in Australia. Easters follows the Australian style (3 on 3 with no Points of Information or Replies), rather than the British Parliamentary Style used at WUDC. It is held every year either on or in the week after Easter, under the auspices of the Australasian Intervarsity Debating Association (AIDA). The host university is selected a year before at a meeting of the AIDA Council. The 2013 Easters is to held at Griffith University on the Gold Coast.

The first Easters was held in 1990 as an Australian response from growing institutions to have access to a high class, local tournament. Previously debating had been limited at intervarsity level to the older, more ingrained universities. The tournament was set up as a Pro-Am tournament, meaning that two novice speakers must compete from every team. This tournament has therefore allowed the development of junior speakers from large institutions as well as the opportunity for smaller institutions to grow and compete on the intervarsity stage. In 1992 an Affirmative Action motion was introduced, ensuring that before teams could compete one third of their contingent has to be women, and one third of the first three teams must also be women. This has led to Australia having the greatest number of ‘breaking’, or finalist, women in the world.

The current Easters champions are Sydney University.

PAST CHAMPIONS