On top of the world in their respective jobs – a bunch of local celebrities, businessfolk and politicians are shaking in their boots ahead of squaring off against their junior counterparts this month.

Yes, Tauranga's Great Debate is on next weekend – and promises to be a great night of argument-filled entertainment at Classic Flyers on Saturday, May 13, from 5pm.

The fight for the Rotary Cup will involve three teams of students facing off against three teams of adults – a political team, celebrity team and a local business team – at the charity event.

Proceeds from the night go towards promotion of debating among Bay of Plenty youth along with other Rotary charitable endeavours such as road safety education and the Spirit of NZ.

This year the Celebs team is made up of Judge Paul Geoghegan, Nick Dangerfield and Dr
Luke Bradford.

The celeb

Dr Luke admits he's never been in a formal debate. How does he feel ahead of The Great Debate? 'Well... I'll do what I can to avoid ritual humiliation at the hands of the student debaters.”

Dr Luke is The Royal NZ College of General Practitioners' new medical director. He's a partner in the 5th Avenue Family Practice and a GP there. So does his health management bode him well?

'My medical director role is quite public and press-facing.” So he's confident? 'In terms of my ability of standing in front of 500 people talking – I'm not worried about that. But since I only found out last week a ‘moot' is the name of the debate topic...so we'll see how the rest goes....”

The businesswoman

The 2023 bizzo team is Cecilia Burgess of Cooney Lees Morgan, Bay of Plenty Regional councillor Paula Thompson and David Littlewood from Modern Office.

Cecilia says the debate is 'going to be challenging”. She is chief executive officer at Tauranga law firm Cooney Lees Morgan, and has spent the majority of her career in management of professional services firms including as COO at both PwC and Bell Gully in NZ, business development director at Minter Ellison in Australia and heading business development teams for Linklaters in Hong Kong and London.

Won't her impressive CV help? 'Well, I'm hoping it will, but gosh – the debating rules are new to me. So that will be the hard thing – sticking within the rules – as I'm not used arguing within the rules.

'And that – I think – will be a challenge for all of the bizzos team.”

Her first time in The Great debate, Cecilia is rather fresh. 'No, only debating experience was in the old Form 2 – Year 8 – grade, so a little while ago.” Despite this Cecelia's looking forward to it. 'I am because it's a very good cause – we were lucky enough to meet some of the students who won the BOP regional competition and they're absolutely delightful – I think the night will be fun.”

The politico

Lastly, the Politicos team is ‘Sam, Cam and Jan': Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell, List MP Jan Tinetti and political candidate Cameron Luxton.

Cameron's first Great Debate, he's excited to be part of a community-run event that's producing thinkers and leaders from the BOP. 'These teens are accomplished debaters, they are all impressive in their own right – in a team, look out! We politicos are going to be under pressure to perform!”

Will his skillset help? 'I advocated for the community I belong to and the principles I believe in, that passion will be with me on-stage. This is a style of debate I haven't yet had a chance to engage in...it offers a great chance to think about a topic from an angle one might not yet agree with, and our country needs more of that.”