Australs 2013: Sydney v Victoria in Open Final; IIU v Hong Kong in ESL

Venue of the 2013 Australs ESL Grand Final

The main final of the 2013 Australasian Intervarsity Debating Championships will showcase the best of Australia and New Zealand, the only two countries from where winners come from since the event began in 1975.

#1 University of Sydney 2 (Daniel Swain, Nina Ubaldi, Paul Karp) will seek to give their school, the most successful in the competition's history, its 16th trophy. Their opponents, #2 Victoria University of Wellington (Asher Emanuel, Jodie O'Neill, Nick Cross), come from the only non-Australian institution that has won Australs and the Kiwis want to bring the title back to NZ for the 6th time.   

In the ESL final, #2ESL International Islamic University Malaysia 1, a team from the Asian powerhouse that usually skips this lower category, will face #5ESL Hong Kong University 2. Universitas Indonesia defeated an HKU squad in the 2011 Australs ESL final. This year two UI teams advanced into the ESL elimination stage but fell in the quarterfinals. Teams from Universitas Gadjah Mada and Universitas Atma Jaya also competed but failed to get enough points in the prelims to pass the cut.