L-R: Roshyna Attwal (Bacchus Marsh Grammar), Finnian Armstrong (Overnewton Anglican Community College),
Lucy Eales (Loreto College Ballarat), Kayla Johnstone (Haileybury), Anika Nicholapillai (St Monica's College),
and Connor Rogalsky (Gippsland Grammar). Absent: Bayley Mackie (Phoenix P-12 Community College)
L-R: State Final Winner Lucy Eales from Loreto College Ballarat,
and State Final runner-up Kayla Johnstone from Haileybury,
at the Wheeler Centre
Lucy Eales from Loreto College Ballarat captured the top spot at the 2024 Plain English Speaking Award (PESA) with her speech, ‘Yarning’. Her love for talking, coupled with her desire to speak out for Indigenous Australians, whose voices have been stolen, underscores her desire for greater representation in these disadvantaged communities.
She underlined, “I believe that overtalking is the key to respectful yarning and reconciliation with the First People of our nation.”
In her speech, Lucy explored the difficulties suffered within the Indigenous community as yarning, once the voice of these individuals, is now silenced, unfortunately due to the generational impacts of colonisation and systematic racism in vital social institutions. “… when people, especially Indigenous people, speak out and stand up about the issues that affect them, they are met with indifference, annoyance and dismissive hand waves,” she reflected.
“Yarning, conversation and true listening are vital if we wish to build a better relationship with Indigenous people and their culture in this country.”
The Final was held on Friday 26 July at the Wheeler Centre, and was emceed by Zuva Goverwa, winner of the Victorian State Final in 2021.
There were 7 state finalists that spoke on themes ranging from climate change to the need for primary care, paired with an additional impromptu speech where students were provided a prompt and were required to improvise a short speech surrounding it. Adjudicators made their selection of the state winner and runner-up based on three main categories – depth of research and quality of analysis, degree of logic and structure in developing an argument, and speech delivery.
Kayla Johnstone from Haileybury claimed the runner-up spot with her speech, ‘The domestic violence epidemic’. Kayla delivered a powerful speech condemning harmful masculine mindsets and toxic masculinity, amplified through the use of social media.
“Although several factors contribute to this growth in harmful masculine mindsets, the use of social media has enabled [misogynistic ideologies and toxic masculinity] to be entirely radicalized and shared with young men,” she emphasised.
“Our primary focus for fighting this epidemic must therefore include providing men an environment where the promotion of toxic masculinity and domestic violence online and offline is denormalized, educated against and condemned.”
The VCAA congratulates Lucy, Kayla and all the other finalists for their captivating speeches.
Learn more about
PESA.