I discovered today that New Zealand has qualified for the knock-out rounds of the 2010 World school debating championships in Qatar and is on its way to defend the title it won in Athens last year.The competition is an annual event first held in 1988. Since then New Zealand has hosted once, in 1994, won four times – 1991, 1992, 1995 and 2009 – and was runner-up in 2008.

Consisting of five secondary school students – from Samuel Marsden Collegiate School, Chilton St James School, Auckland Grammar School, Scots College and St Cuthbert's College – the team won six of eight preliminary round debates. It beat teams from Slovakia, Estonia, the US, Nigeria, the United Arab Emirates and Romania – but lost to Israel and Australia. Tomorrow it will face off against the Netherlands and, if victorious, go on to debate Ireland or Canada in the quarterfinals.

Debating is a vigorous and competitive sport, and competitors must do much background reading in order to remain up to date on current events. Most of this team's training involves debating university students around five years older than them – and the older debaters are ruthless and pull no punches.

Making it to the knock-out rounds is remarkable achievement. It is also extremely important for people, especially our young people, to have a forum in which to debate ideas openly and honestly. In fact, it has been said in the past that school debating displays a higher level of honesty and openness than most debates in the House of Representatives!