Welcome to 2014! As many of you will already be in your second or third week of schooling, it’s likely that you’re getting plenty of workload from across your subjects. Some of you may very well be preparing for your oral presentation SAC that’s coming up very soon! If that is the case, I’ve collated a list of some popular topics that have cropped up in the Australian media since September last year. The list is intended to help you brainstorm different issues you may wish to debate in your speech, with the contention left for you to decide once you have researched enough on the topic! Check it out below:

1. Treatment of asylum seekers 
2. Processing of asylum seekers
3. ‘One punch law’
4. Street violence
5. Should mathematics be compulsory in schools?
6. Shark culling in South Australia
7. The end of car manufacturing in Australia
8. Sex education and homosexuality
9. Work-for-the-dole scheme
10. Needle vending machines
11. East-West tunnel
12. Cory Bernadi’s book – The Conservative Revolution (Abortion)
13. Should we smack our children?
14. The Indigenous employment gap
15. Tecoma McDonalds
16. Sexism in the media
17. Animal cruelty
18. Treatment of fare evaders
19. Wearing the hijab in schools
20. Carbon tax
21. Childcare wages
22. Should the government fund private schools?
23. See Oral Presentation Issues in 2013 for other ongoing issues