The USU celebrated yet another debating win earlier this week, when Joanna Connolly and Nina Ubaldi were crowned champions of the UBS Australian Women’s Debating Championship, giving the USU its third consecutive Women's title.
The tournament was held at the University of Sydney from 24 to 27 September, with 120 women from 12 institutions from across Australia and New Zealand competing.
The USU contingent flourished on home turf; six of its 11 teams broke, while Mel Brooks, Bec Barrett and Eleanor Gordon-Smith made the list of top 10 speakers (in fifth, sixth and eighth, respectively).
Champions Connolly and Ubaldi formed USU 4, and faced off against fellow USU speakers Bec Barrett and Abbey McCarthy (USU 2); Kelly Butler and Emily Chalk from the University of Queensland and the University of Melbourne; and Amy van Ruit and Ash Shand from Macquarie University in the final of the British Parliamentary Style competition.
Connolly and Ubaldi represented Closing Government on the motion: ‘this house supports a one-child policy in India’.
The USU also provided an esteemed team of adjudicators for the tournament, Ellie Rye, Bronwyn Cowell, Naomi Hart, Katherine Connolly, Eliza Forsyth were all selected to adjudicate the final.
The USU’s Julia Bowes was the tournament’s Chief Adjudicator.
The victory is yet another feather to the cap of the USU’s long and proud history of debating.
The USU’s very foundation was a debating club formed more than 135 years ago, and today is ranked the world’s number one debating institution – ahead of elite universities such as Yale, Oxford and Harvard.
The USU has also been a strong supporter of female participation in all levels of the organisation, from debating, to student leadership positions to governance.
The Australian Women’s Debating Championship was a great opportunity for Australia’s best and brightest to hone their British Parliamentary debating skills in a supportive pro-am environment.