I competed in the World Debating Festival at the University of Sydney in July 1978. The Glasgow University Union team beat Columbia and Cambridge, but was defeated by Oxford. In addition tospeaking in Sydney, the GUU Team spoke in debates at the Universities of Newcastle and Western Australia.

The event was organised by Ted Marr the President of the University of Sydney Union and aided by Vice-President Greg Pearce (now a lawyer and a Member of the NSW Legislative Council) It was sponsored by Honeywell International. In addition to teams from Australasia, the teams were as follows:

• United Kingdom
• Cambridge University Union
• Daniel Janner (now a criminal law barrister in London)
• Andrew Mitchell (now a UK Member of Parliament)
• Daphne Romney (now an employment law barrister in London)
• Glasgow University Union
• David Roberts (now working in museums in the west of Scotland)
• Jim Shearer (tragically killed in his twenties a car accident)
• Ewan Sutherland
• Oxford University Union
• Nicholas O'Shaughnessy (now a professor of marketing at Keele University)
• John Harrison (teacher?)
• Mark Sterling (now a partner in Allen & Overy, lawyers, Hong Kong)
• United States of America
• Columbia University
• Harvard University
• Al Metz
• Mike Bredehoft
• David Pash (now a lawyer in Los Angeles)
• Oregon University
• Rogers Senders
• Kent Mortimer
• Australia
• Adelaide
• Melbourne
• Monash
• Maureen Sheehan
• Sydney University Union
• Michael Adams (now a law professor at University of Technology Sydney??)
• ????
• Western Australia
• Simon York
• New Zealand
• Auckland
• Mark Lowndes (now a partner in his own law firm in Auckland)
• Mike O'Neill
• Canterbury
• David Kidd
• Raoul Neave

This contest was the pre-cursor and the inspiration for the World Debating Championships. (See also World Universities Debating Council.)