The National HIV Youth Debate will be staged annually and it will be over two days. The chairman of the National AIDS Council, Sir Peter Barter, said this was necessary because the issues are critical to the development of the country. He said the addition of another day was necessary as time was very tight for the inaugural debate held at the Divine Word University campus in Madang for one day on Wednesday 23 June, 2010.

Sir Peter also praised the students from the six national universities that took part in the inaugural debate.
He said it was encouraging to see students taking a keen interest in debating a national issue such as the spread of HIV.

The debate saw the universities fielding two teams each to play each other in a knock out competition.
DWU and Pacific Adventist University (PAU) eventually fought out in the grand final at a packed SVD Memorial Auditorium at the DWU campus. PAU edged out DWU in a close contest.

Sir Peter said while the debaters did do their best in the inaugural debate, they needed to do more research and talk about all aspects of HIV/AIDS issue in the country.

Sir Peter said the debaters spoke very little about the HIV Testing centres, the availability of anti-retroviral therapy (ART), the work of organizations like Business Coalition Against HIV/AIDS (BAHA) and positive living among other topics.

The 2010 Nature’s Own National HIV Youth Debate is an initiative of Sir Peter and was sponsored by Coca Cola Amatil (who received the naming right with one of its products, Nature’s Own), AusAID, PNG Institute of Medical Research, Madang Resort Hotel, Nasfund, Barrick Gold Ltd, Ramu NiCo Management (MCC) Ltd, Westpac Bank, Divine Word University, UNAIDS, UNDP and National AIDS Council Secretariat.