News
3 June, 2026
Council chambers a hive of activity for youth over weekend
The Wingecarribee Shire Council chambers were full of the sound of debate on Saturday, not from councillors, but rather from local Southern Highlands high school students debating topics as part of the Southern Highlands Model United Nations Assembly (SH MUNA).
The Wingecarribee Shire Council chambers were full of the sound of debate on Saturday, not from councillors, but rather from local Southern Highlands high school students debating topics as part of the Southern Highlands Model United Nations Assembly (SH MUNA).
The assembly was hosted by Rotary branches from both Moss Vale and Bowral/Mittagong, with their volunteers providing morning tea, lunch and support to the students with debating questions and any other queries they may have had.
The SHMUNA has been running since 2015, with Rotary involving the local high schools in the program and the judges for the event are often former alumni from those schools who then often go into jobs either nationally or internationally.
This year’s judging panel consisted of former Southern Highlands Christian School students Joseph Brake (playing the role of ‘Secretary General’) and Georgia Smith, Rotary District Governor Elect, Judy Ford and Jordan Fallon, President of the Canberra Sundowners Rotary Club.
Senior High students from several of the Highland’s high schools – Moss Vale High School (3 teams), Bowral High School (2 teams), Chevalier College (2 teams), St Paul’s International College (1 team), Southern Highlands Christian School (also one team) and Oxley College (2 teams) spent all day debating world issues that the United Nations has been facing, including:
Combating the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism, and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance;
Use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights;
Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order;
Human rights and unilateral coercive measures;
Eradicating rural poverty to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development;
No first placement of weapons in outer space;
Promotion of inclusive and effective international tax cooperation at the United Nations; and finally -
Promotion of equitable geographical distribution in the membership of the human rights treaty bodies.
Each school represented ‘nations’ and even dressed up in costume relating to those nations, which this year were Australia, Brazil, China, Czechia, Canada, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, France, Egypt, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation.
Debate got spirited at times between students, with Secretary General Joseph Brake having to remind them at times to keep within the guidelines, but overall the judges were impressed with how the students performed throughout the day.
Southern Highlands Christian School Year 11 student Luke Hilaire was pleased that he was able to learn so much from the day and what issues are currently facing our world right now.
“I think that particularly that dealing with other nations and managing that pressure of how they are confirming to their ideas and values as opposed to Australian values was interesting,” he told The Southern Wire.
“The UN also must balance ‘false’ ideals generated by other nations and how they manoeuvre around the heavy debate questions – that's the biggest part and the biggest challenge.”
One of the issues Luke and his team (People’s Republic of China) spoke about was the ability of some countries to develop space capable weaponry.
“A lot of people assume that China has been building space capable weaponry,” he said.
“The point is that within the UN and a in a lot of geopolitics in general, there’s a lot of skepticism around China and how they use their weapons technology, and one of those aspects is that China has weaponry that they can launch into space and have it in orbit to attack at any time.
“This is against the 1967 PAROS Treaty, and China’s defence to this is ‘we don’t have space capable weaponry, but we do have anti-missile capability such as micro-waves or kinetic weapons that will intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)’.”
St Paul’s International College teacher Catriona McDonald was impressed with the way the students conducted themselves throughout the day.
“It’s been wonderful for our students to gain confidence in public speaking as well,” she said.
“One of our students came last year and taught the other two and hopefully they’ll continue next year to do that. The fact that they are learning about how formal meetings are conducted and getting the teaching from the youth United Nations delegates who are
here to run the meeting for us has been very kind and they were also educating the students on how to take part which has been invaluable.”
They had two Year 12 students and one Year 11 student attending and represented France, winning the Best Costume award in their traditional Napoleonic uniform.
“The Year 11 student was busy conducting the research for our Year 12’s today,” Ms. McDonald said.
“And she’ll come along again next year as a speaker, too. Seeing all the costumes from the schools and how creative they were was a bonus as well.”
Bowral High School teacher John Raison also added some comments from the public school perspective and said he was very proud of his student's efforts.
"Last weekend Bowral High School students Chloe, Josh, Michael, Bella, Sam, and Callum did a fantastic job representing Canada and Brazil at the Model United Nations Assembly (MUNA) event at the Wingecarribee Shire Council Chambers," Mr Raison told The Southern Wire.
"Students had to prepare research and then use it to debate a range of real-world issues from the perspective of their countries.
"Both of our teams did very well to propose amendments, collaborate with their peers from the community in bloc meetings, and present arguments to the assembly.
"We are also proud to recognise our own Year 7 student Sally, who was the sole diplomatic courier for the event. Her invaluable contribution allowed for teams to communicate with each other during debates. On behalf of all the teams, thank you Sally!
"Congratulations again to all of our participants!"
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