When an opportunity comes up "grab it" is the message from an Orange High School student who has recently returned from an exclusive experience in Canberra.
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Year 12 student and school vice captain Natalie Mansur was selected by her peers as one of only 30 delegates from NSW to take part in the National Schools Constitutional Convention in the country's capital.
Natalie was selected for the experience after taking part in the state convention at NSW Parliament House in 2023.
Natalie is completing her HSC this year with the goal of eventually working in regional and rural dentistry.
However, she had wanted to be a politician in the past and when the opportunity came up for her to take part in the convention she jumped at it.
"It just really interested me, when there's an opportunity I think it's just super important to grab it even if you don't know what it is," Natalie said.
"I like to take advantage of situations ... I heard all these different things that came out of the constitutional convention and I was like, 'I might as well give it a shot'.
"I didn't expect to make it to be completely honest, when I got to Sydney I was already shocked enough but when I made it to Canberra I was over the moon.
"It's such a good opportunity and I think it's really important even if you're not 100 per cent sure what the opportunity is going to bring or what the outcome is going to be I think it's still great to kind of give it a go."
For her the experience enabled her to apply her knowledge from legal studies to parliament.
"I think overall the actual application of what I have learnt in legal studies has definitely helped, especially looking at the parliamentary structure, and even the constitution ... you can only learn so much from a book and I think applying it was really incredible," Natalie said.
"It helped me understand our political system a little bit more and helped understand the different sections of parliament but it just was really cool."
Student Representative Council coordinator Emily Wright said she believes Natalie is the first student that's gone to the national level from Orange High School.
"It's a massive achievement and she's got the natural ability to do it all."
Natalie said she did not expect to get as far as she did and initially thought it was a prank when her name was read out for the national convention.
"I had to submit an essay about the constitution and if I thought it needed any reforms ... from that they selected a group of 120 kids to get flown down to parliament in Sydney," Natalie said about the selection process.
"We had a day in Sydney where we talked about constitutional reform, different amendments.
"From that all the students decided who they thought should represent the NSW school community in Canberra."
The national convention was held from Tuesday, March 19 to Thursday, March 21, 2024 with students taking part from across Australia.
The event included listening to speakers at Old Parliament House, workshops with people from different states and their own mock debate about a section of the constitution.
"We were trying to decide whether or not we liked Section 96 of the constitution which talked a lot about money and money to the state versus money to Federal Government," Natalie said.
"We were trying to decide whether or not we felt it needed to be amended to give more money to states rather than to the Federal Government.
"We got input from other states and how they found money in their states."
She said student participants got up to express their thoughts ending with a mini referendum.
"At the end the result was a no," Natalie said.
"It was pretty close, NSW kind of skewed it a little bit because there were a lot more kids compared to other states but it did end up being a no.
"We thought there did need to be a constitutional reform because we thought the Federal Government shouldn't have that much money ... however the reform we were talking about we felt didn't cover what needed to be covered.
"The one that was presented to us was not the right path to go down."
On the final day of the convention they toured Parliament House and met their local politicians.
"I met Andrew Gee and he was incredible and was really nice, we got some photos, we discussed some really cool topics and he was lovely," Natalie said.
She also met Governor General David Hurley and his wife Linda during the convention.
Another highlight was attending Question Time.
"It was really cool to see how politicians interact with each other and also reply to certain questions that are raised, it got a little bit heated," she said.