New Zealand rocks third place at World Debating Champs

<h2>The New Zealand Schools Debating Team has made it through to the knock-out rounds of the World Schools Debating Championships in Zagreb&comma; Croatia&period;<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>After eight preliminary rounds the New Zealand team is ranked third out of 65 countries at the biggest World Champs ever&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The New Zealand team won seven of eight debates in the preliminary rounds&comma; defeating countries like India&comma; Estonia&comma; Indonesia and South Korea&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The New Zealand team consists of Lydia Joseph &lpar;Columba College&rpar; &lpar;Captain&rpar;&comma; Nicholas Goodman &lpar;Hamilton Boys’ High School&rpar;&comma; Sabrina Swerdloff &lpar;Otago Girls’ High School&rpar;&comma; Alan Zhang &lpar;Macleans College&rpar; and William Price &lpar;Westlake Boys’ High School&rpar; and is coached by Hamish Saunders and Nick Cross&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The team was selected at the 2018 New Zealand Schools’ Debating Championships&comma; held in Wellington in August&period; Former debaters at the New Zealand Championships include Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and MPs Chris Bishop&comma; Megan Woods and Ginny Andersen&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>New Zealand now progresses to the octo-finals&comma; with their opponent yet to be determined&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Topics debated so far include the development of lethal autonomous weapons&comma; school vouchers&comma; the Belt and Road initiative&comma; and &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;call-out culture”&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The World Schools’ Debating Championships is the world’s most prestigious debating competition for secondary school debaters&period; New Zealand has won the tournament four times since 1988&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;