Anthony Albanese ducks challenge from Australia’s best spellers after Kids News Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee

Anthony Albanese has wisely ducked a challenge mounted by one of Australia’s top young spellers, avoiding what could have been a blistering defeat at spelling the scientific name of one of Australia’s most iconic animals: The Platypus.

The dare was issued by 11-year-old Queensland student Jillian Strong, who alongside her fellow 2024 Prime Minister’s Spelling Bee winners, Aditya Paul, 13 (Sydney), and Echo Feng, 9 (Canberra), claimed the top prize of meeting Mr Albanese on Monday.

Asked to spell ornithorhynchus anatinus, the Prime Minister instead phoned a friend, deferring the spelling of the word to Aditya, who nailed it confidently.

“No, I’m not doing that, you can ask him,” he said, prompting laughter from the students and their parents.

Adamant Mr Albanese had shirked her word, Jillian joked it made her “a little irritated”.

Mr Albanese’s performance was an improvement on last year’s whitewash, where he failed to spell Caesar, balalaika, the word for a Russian stringed instrument, and ethnomusicological, the study of music.

Initially adamant he would only spell one word (astrophysicist, as chosen by Echo), his early win coupled with jubilant persuasion from the students saw him successfully spell “filibuster” as well.

While it wasn’t Aditya’s first choice – who was going ask Mr Albanese to spell bourgeoisie – the Year 7 Sydney Grammar School student took pity on the Labor leader.

“I originally was going to go with bourgeoisie … but later I decided that he’s probably had a bit of a rough day in office,” said Aditya.

“We listened in on question time and it was quite lively, so we decided to just maybe tone it down a bit.”

Preparation for the country’s top spelling prize is tough, with all three winners avid readers.

Jillian, who loves the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, said her love of spelling was because “it just sort of helps people to communicate things easily”.

Reading the dictionary and the classics helped to hone Aditya’s win, whose advice to future Spelling Bee champions was to not “cram (training) into a week or two”.

Run by Kids News and News Corp Australia, this was the fourth year of the Spelling Bee, with Mr Albanese personally crowning the winners for the third year in a row while also posing for selfies with the families.

The competition challenges young minds across three different age brackets, green (Years 3-4), orange (Years 5-6) and red (Years 7-8), with Monday’s winners coming out on top after three rounds.

News Corp Australia community ambassador and Herald and Weekly Times chairman Penny Fowler said the annual competition played an “important role in educating our children”, which benefited all Australians.

“News and advocacy helps create positive change across the Australian community and Kids News recognises the importance education plays and how sound literacy and a love for language can unlock a lifetime of learning,” she said.

“This year we had a record number of Australian schoolchildren enrol in the PM’s Spelling Bee – more than 70,000 students from almost 1400 schools.”

Kids News editor Diana Jenkins said the Spelling Bee had been championed by teachers from “Launceston to Alice Springs”.

“Teachers have embraced the Bee because foundation literacy skills are at the heart of a sound education,” she said.

“There is no greater priority for Kids News than supporting all young Australians by providing reliable news and literacy tools like the Bee that are so essential for their future.

“The News in the Community program ensures these resources are free to use so that every Australian child has the same access to opportunity.”