On The Up: Hawke’s Bay teens triumph at NZ debating championships

Isabella McKeefry (left) and Yuval Sela hold their trophies from the 2025 New Zealand Secondary School Debating Competition, with team member Anshika Negi (inset). Photo / Jack Riddell

A team of clever teens from Hawke’s Bay has won this year’s secondary school debating champs for the first time in the competition’s 37 years.

The Hawke’s Bay Secondary Schools debate team was captained by Isabella McKeefry, Year 13 from Havelock North High School, beside her was Yuval Sela, also Year 13 from Havelock North High and Anshika Negi, Year 12 from Taradale High School, with the team sponsored by Sainsbury Logan & Williams.

McKeefry also won the cup for Top Speaker at the competition and has been selected to captain the New Zealand team when they head to Panama for the World Schools Debating Championships later in the year.

The team was selected on their performances in the regional competition in March.

The New Zealand Secondary School Debating Championship is held annually in Wellington and comprises seven rounds at Victoria University, with the finals in the Grand Hall at Parliament.

Winning five out of their seven first rounds, the Hawke’s Bay team debated topics including:

• Would you prefer to live in 100 years’ time or now?
• The rights of separatist movements
• Donald Trump
• Technology

“We had random debates about land value taxes and literary theory which were quite difficult to understand, and you often have to cast aside your values,” McKeefry said.

“We had a semi against Bay of Plenty, we hadn’t faced them for about two years, it was great to be able to have the battle of the Bays.”

The argument for that debate was: “you are an engineer at the top AI [artificial intelligence] firm and you believe you’ve developed a fully conscious AI that is indistinguishable from humans – should you tell people?”.

Hawke’s Bay’s team had to argue against whistleblowing, while Bay of Plenty had to argue for it, Sela said.

After winning that semi and the right to call their region “the Bay”, the team headed into the final in the Grand Hall of Parliament to take on Wellington Gold, who the team hadn’t faced before, making them an unknown challenge.

The topic for debate in the final was about Trump instructing Harvard to comply with altering their admissions processes otherwise the Ivy League school would be punished with funding freezes.

“We were ‘for’ Harvard complying with his instruction, so it wasn’t the easiest topic,” laughed McKeefry.

“It was tough but in the end we did win unanimously which was a hard thing to pull off,” said Sela.

This is the first time a Hawke’s Bay team have won the New Zealand Secondary Schools Debating Championship since it began in 1988.

It is also McKeefry and Sela’s last time debating in the championships, but Negi will be returning next year.

On leaving school, Sela is eyeing up a Bachelor of Science with a plan to head into teaching, McKeefry is wanting to study law and international studies, while Negi is considering medicine, law or something humanities based.

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and spent the last 15 years working in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier.