Teams came from many different parts of Australia including the NSW north and south coast, Sydney, Wollongong, Newcastle areas as well as Victoria, Tasmania and Queensland.

The competition is open each year to senior secondary students who are sponsored by different District Rotary clubs from around Australia. Team Russia from Boorowa was sponsored this year by Canberra Lake Burley Griffin Rotary Club.

Participants spend several months prior to the event researching the UN resolutions while preparing notes to help them debate the chosen topics over the three day event.

Participants this year worked in blocs from Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa and ‘ Others’ including America and Australia on the Friday to lobby for the resolutions they wished to debate as representatives of their chosen countries. The results were the following topics were debated; the situations in Syria, Libya, Palestine and resolutions regarding the issues around the return of cultural property, human rights and refugees.

All participants, known as ‘delegates’ for their allocated countries, competed in the House of Representatives with a large audience of supporters including families and teachers. Team Russia wore dark glasses as part of their ‘cultural outfits’ and caused a lot of humour in the House as they folded arms and looked very serious whenever it was their turn to debate. The standard of debate this year was very high.

An extra treat for all delegates came when they were allowed to tour Government House at Yarralumla. The supervised tour was a wonderful opportunity to view some Australian heritage that is usually only open to the public once a year. Following the tour delegates attended the ANU embassy dinner.

Team Russia impressed throughout the competition with their passionately presented arguments representing Russia in a stereotypical but much appreciated way. It was also very exciting when the adjudicator explained at the end of the competition that team Russia was one of the top 6 teams in the competition thanks to their theatrical debating and strong characterisation of ‘tough Russians’ as they are often depicted.

Team member Mitch Bonfield punched the air to celebrate the team’s triumph on the announcement as his team mates Rhys Smith and Rebecca Poplin grinned beneath their sunglasses at the audience!

- MUNA coach Debra Eustace