Introduction

Submission to the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia

James Cook University

March 2014

Introduction

James Cook University (JCU) welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Joint Select Committee on Northern Australia.

JCU is Australia’s leading university in the tropics with an explicit (legislated) focus on education and research addressing the opportunities and critical challenges facing natural and human systems in the tropics, world-wide.

Northern Australian is a vast natural and cultural asset of global significance. There are exciting opportunities to build on the north’s economic foundations of mining, tourism and agriculture through dynamic development and leveraging of smart technologies, place-based tropical expertise and by building economic, research and educational links with Asia Pacific and the tropical world, to develop a spectrum of products, technologies, processes and services.

At the same time, though, it is important to be mindful of the fact that there are significant climatic, environmental, physical and economic constraints in northern Australia, as well as a history of overblown claims about its potential that underestimate or misrepresent these environmental, climatic and logistical realities.

Universities and research institutions in the north are major employers in their own right and their operations have significant local impact. Institutions with substantial footprints and deep networks in northern Australia such as JCU have a critical role in developing the region through:  Human capital development - developing regionally relevant education and workforce skills;  Contributing to the development of social capital through staff and student mobility, research collaborations, and participation networks with business, government, regional development and community organisations at local, regional and international scale;  Delivering excellent research with impact and relevance for policy makers, industries and communities;  Their role as incubators of smart technologies; and  As primary providers of data and analysis.

In this submission, the University presents some general comments about principles that should guide consideration of the opportunities for and constraints on the further development of northern Australia. We also provide commentary on what JCU specifically, and universities and research institutions more broadly do, and argue for our strategic role in developing the skills, networks and R&D that will be fundamental for sustainable development of the north over the long term.

Development needs to be considered thoughtfully. Development that erodes northern Australia’s unique natural and cultural assets or that does not engage and align with the long-term values, aspirations and activities of peoples, businesses and institutions of northern Australia is likely to result in perverse outcomes, exacerbate under-development in Indigenous communities, and under- deliver on the region’s and Australia’s social, environmental and economic future.

Accordingly, JCU submits that a northern Australia development agenda must take into account the critical importance of:  Maintaining, and be seen to be maintaining, the natural and cultural assets that are fundamental to regional identity and sustainable economic activity.  Including Indigenous communities and perspectives.  Developing strategic approaches to adaptation and mitigation of climate change impacts.  Incrementally improving productivity by optimising efficiency and capacity of existing infrastructure (e.g., Burdekin irrigation).  Leveraging and maximising the capacity of key social and cultural assets including education, health and research institutions and the associated networks.  Accessibility to and sharing of data, analysis and R&D for transparent, evidenced-based decision making across private sector investment and public policy development.  Strengthening governance structures and capacity to enable devolved decision making at appropriate regional scales.  Maximising the enablers of smart technological and service innovations – high speed broadband and accessible network and application platforms.  Growing social and human capital to enable local businesses and communities to participate in and benefit from a development agenda.  Encouraging research collaborations that bring together industry, policy makers, regulators, communities and research providers, along with their extensive informal and formal global networks.

James Cook University

JCU (est. 1970) is Australia’s leading university in the tropics, with an explicit (legislated) focus on education and research addressing the critical opportunities and challenges facing natural and human systems in the tropics, world-wide.

JCU is a comprehensive university with three main campuses in Townsville, Cairns and Singapore, complemented by regional and remote study centres and research stations. In 2013 there were 22,400 students enrolled, including 12,460 in Townsville, 4,122 in Cairns and 3603 in Singapore.

The University’s teaching and research focuses on four themes that resonate powerfully at our regional level and globally through the twin axes of the Asia-Pacific and the tropics:  Tropical Ecosystems and Environment  Industries and Economies in the Tropics  Peoples and Societies in the Tropics  Tropical Health, Medicine and Biosecurity

The University makes a significant contribution to the regional economy of northern Queensland. It employs 3,453 staff in Townsville (1,596 FTE) and 1,125 staff in Cairns (487 FTE). Recent analysis estimated that the 2012 economic contribution of the University’s operations to Gross State Product of Queensland was $587.1m, with more than 90% of that impact in Townsville ($398m) and Cairns ($137.5m) (WRI 2013).

The economic impact of JCU is far greater than its annual expenditure on its operations and expenditure of staff and students. Our primary contribution is through the development of human

capital in the region. The presence of graduates in a region demonstrably contributes to higher wages and lower unemployment rates, and provides a more educated and productive workforce. JCU graduates are an important catalyst for growth, economic activity and well-being in northern Queensland (WRI 2013) and the focus on themes critical to northern Australia in the curriculum and research is a significant enabler of place-based expertise that can leverage comparative advantage.

Teaching JCU has a crucial role in training the professional workforce for northern Australia. The curriculum maintains a sharp focus on our region and our graduates have made a deep and enduring impact on the workforce capacity of the region. Low participation rates are a complex challenge and JCU continues to develop diverse delivery strategies to improve education outcomes.

Provision of excellent professional education and training in regions is a critical strategy to ensure supply and maintenance of a professional workforce in regional and remote areas because a significantly higher proportion of people trained in regional communities will be retained in the region than those trained in capital cities. For example, recent analysis of graduate outcomes in medical training show that 67% of graduates from JCU’s medical school undertook their internship in non-metropolitan and rural areas compared to 17% graduates from medical schools from major metropolitan areas, suggesting that the University is aligned with the workforce needs of the region, in contrast to Australia’s predominantly metropolitan medical schools.

JCU is committed to providing access and opportunity to under-represented groups, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, through raising aspirations, providing alternative pathways into University study and delivering programs in a format that meets the needs of students. Our study centres at Mackay, Thursday Island and Mount Isa are integral to this approach as are innovative programs such as the Remote Area Teacher Education Program (RATEP) and the Indigenous Health Careers Access Program (ICHAP). RATEP received an Office of Learning and Teaching Program Award in 2012.

Research JCU is Australia’s leading university in the tropics with internationally recognised research strengths in the fields of environmental science and management, ecology, coral reef science, biology and biochemistry, plant and animal science, geosciences, tropical health and medicine, high speed wind engineering, Indigenous knowledge, linguistics and tourism studies.

Over the past 5 years the University has consolidated its position in the authoritative Academic Ranking of World Universities (AWRU), being ranked in the top 400 universities in the world (Top 4%).

Approximately 650 of JCU’s staff are active researchers working through a range of multidisciplinary centres of excellence and research institutes. Many of these are of world standing in a wide range of fields with direct importance for northern Australia, including:  Sustainable use, conservation and management of tropical coral reef, coastal, rainforest and savannah ecosystems;  Understanding impacts of climate change on biodiversity;  Marine food security – wild fisheries management and tropical aquaculture;  Biodiscovery and molecular development of therapeutics;  Biosecurity and managing tropical infectious disease, including managing mosquito-borne disease such as dengue and malaria;

 Innovative industrial R&D in algal biotechnology biofuels and uses of biochar in soil improvement and bio-sequestration;  Health workforce planning and provision in underserved regions;  Indigenous health;  Remote sensing, data storage, management and applications.

To broaden out from our established expertise in the sciences, the University established the Cairns Institute to conduct advanced studies in social sciences and humanities on a wide range of social and cultural dimensions of life in northern Australia, South and South-East Asia and the Pacific.

We would like to draw the Committee’s attention to recent, highly relevant policy analysis with an explicit focus on the future of northern Australia development that has been delivered by the Cairns Institute, including investigations of governance (Dale 2013), place-based agriculture and regional development (in conjunction with the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation) (Turnour et al, 2013), tourism (Pearce 2013, Prideaux 2013) and defence force impacts (Welters 2013).

JCU works in partnership with other research organisations, often co-locating key research staff and infrastructure, to support JCU’s research endeavours and increase research capacity in the northern Queensland region. For example:  AIMS@JCU is a collaboration with the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) focused on research in tropical aquaculture, coastal processes and modelling, and stress in tropical marine systems. In 2013 the two institutions provided scholarships and joint supervision for 43 higher degree research (HDR) students with a further 47 HDR students accessing infrastructure and research support.  JCU and CSIRO co-locate researchers in Townsville and Cairns through a Tropical Landscapes Joint Venture (TLJV), a collaborative program of research focused on sustainable management of tropical Queensland’s environmental assets.  JCU hosts the Australian Tropical Herbarium (ATH) in Cairns; a partnership between the Queensland and Commonwealth Governments, CSIRO and JCU. The ATH has one of the largest collections of Australian tropical flora.  JCU leads the Queensland Tropical Health Alliance (QTHA); a collaboration between JCU, the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, University of Queensland, the Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University.  JCU, the Australian National University (ANU) and AIMS are partners in the Northern Research Futures Collaborative Research Network hosted by Charles Darwin University. The network undertakes a national program of social, coastal/marine and environmental research and innovation in northern Australian.  JCU is host to the national Tropical Research Network, the other members of which are Griffith University, QUT, University of Western Australia, Curtin University, Charles Darwin University, Flinders University and Murdoch University.

ToR 1 & 2: Potential for development, impediment to growth

As has been well documented, northern Australia is a vast area with a relatively small population. It has unique and globally recognised environmental and cultural assets and while remote from Southern Australia, it is closer to major Asian and Pacific population centres than the capital cities in southern Australia.

Development across the north is very uneven and susceptible to boom-bust cycles in resources, agriculture and tourism that arise from variations in commodity prices, currency fluctuations and changes in global financial markets. In some, but not all regions within northern Australia, there is low diversity in local economies which means they have low resilience.

Northern Australia is a globally significant Indigenous domain with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities having control or significant interests in about 80% of the landscape.

There is a number of sectors and industries that have potential for sustainable development, including energy and mining, although specific factors such as water and energy supply, land tenure, relations with Traditional Owners and technological innovations will be determinative.

Tourism is a major employer in northern Australia and is significantly dependent on the integrity of the region’s key environmental and cultural assets. Tourism growth has been stagnant in northern Queensland and over-reliance on the region’s ecosystems as the main drawcard is likely to lead to little more than continued low growth (Prideaux 2013). There are cross-industry opportunities to link tourism and other important northern sectors such as agriculture, education, mining and the military (Pearce 2013).

There are opportunities for development in agriculture (defined here to include aquaculture and fisheries) although there are significant natural constraints (CSIRO 2009). Recent policy analysis has sought to examine how agriculture contributes directly to regional economies as well as indirect social and environmental contributions to regional sustainability (Turnour 2013).1

Energy security is a critical issue and poses significant competitive and investment risks.

Education and health outcomes are poorer than in southern Australia which impacts the development of human and social capital. Poorer outcomes are particularly apparent in Indigenous communities.

Northern Australia is vulnerable to climate change and biodiversity loss and we are already witnessing significant loss of species and habitats. This poses ongoing risks for disaster management, biosecurity, public health, infrastructure and sustainably maintaining key environmental assets, including the Great Barrier Reef and Northern Queensland Wet Tropics World Heritage sites. Indigenous people not only have more to lose from ‘development’ which erodes natural capital of local ecosystems than do non-Indigenous people, but they have significantly less to gain (Stoeckl et al, 2013).

While there are formidable climatic, environmental, physical and economic constraints in northern Australia, there are many exciting opportunities for dynamic development through smart technologies, place-based tropical expertise and building economic, research and educational links with the Asia Pacific and the tropical world to develop a spectrum of products, technologies, processes and services.

Northern Australia and the tropics Northern Australia is generally defined in geographic terms as the region north of the Tropic of Capricorn. The tropics are defined as the region between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. Thus northern Australia is equivalent to Australia’s footprint in the tropics.

1 JCU is a member of the Northern Agriculture CRC proposal currently under development for submission to the next CRC round.

This is not a trivial observation. There is real value in explicitly identifying northern Australia with the tropics, as it clearly situates Australia in one of the most dynamic and critical regions of the world. More than 40% of the world’s population now lives in the tropics and this is likely to grow to 50% by 2050. The tropics are home to 80% of the world’s biodiversity and 20% of global economic output. The sum of the world’s tropical economies – the global tropical product – is projected to reach $40 trillion by 2025; 20 times Australia’s projected GDP. It is estimated that 25% - 30% of this will be spent on importing goods and services and even more on developing new industries (Babacan 2012).

As one of the few advanced Western economies with a significant footprint in the tropics there is enormous potential for northern Australia to be a significant exporter and partner in the growth and development of tropical knowledge, world-wide (Dale 2013).

JCU has led a partnership of 11 universities across the world to assess and report on the critical questions facing the tropics. The State of the Tropics report will answer a very simple question: “Is life in the tropics getting better?” Initial reports were released in 2013 and ongoing publications and analysis will shine a light on a variety of key issues and provide a foundation of knowledge and analysis for policy makers, geopolitical analysts and other stakeholders.

Northern Australia and the Asia-Pacific JCU is pleased to note the explicit reference in the Terms of Reference to connections between northern Australia and the Asia-Pacific. It is worth noting that there are distinctive regional characteristics that provide comparative advantages. Northern Queensland, in particular Cairns, has strong links with Papua New Guinea (PNG) but also China and Japan through international tourism. Darwin has important links with Timor Lesté and Indonesia, Western Australia with India, Sri Lanka and Southern Africa.

Universities have a deep capacity to support an international focus. JCU has research collaborations with over 150 countries in the developed, tropical and regional spheres. These include collaborations in aquaculture with Vietnam, coral reef management in the Philippines and Indonesia, and governance and education services in PNG. In some cases these collaborations have been built over decades of research, education and alumni linkages.

Staff and student exchanges plus collaborative research initiatives all contribute to building long- term relations. It is easy to overlook the benefits of the ‘patient capital’ - the long term relations and their capacity to provide a deeper, more sustainable platform for interactions, including trade in goods and services. JCU’s Singapore campus, which we have operated now for more than 10 years, enables student exchange between northern Queensland and Singapore and is a strategically important platform for JCU to develop connections with Asia through this dynamic global city. The Government’s ‘reverse Colombo plan’ is a welcome geo-politically aware initiative to deepen Australia’s engagement in the region through building student mobility out of Australia.

Digital economy Creative use of digital technologies will be fundamental to industry, agriculture, disaster preparedness and response, education, research, public health and social connectivity in the region. Smart systems, remote sensing and robotics are already starting to transform work across sectors, including agriculture, and the intensity and scope of such transformations will have deeply transformative impacts.

One well recognised challenge is ensuring that industries, utilities, governments, research institutions, community and other not-for-profit organisations, as well as individual firms, farms and people have access to good information and data. While there is a growing trend to make data readily available, there remain significant issues with inconsistent information, inadequate storage, curating and data management plans.

Access to data and research is important to ensure efficient, evidence-based decision making for private investment and public policy.

Sub-standard digital infrastructure, lack of skills and poor quality access are all major impediments to growth. Conversely, high quality infrastructure, skill capacity and access regimes enable myriad creative opportunities to develop new applications, products, businesses and ways of using data.

There are essential requirements to doing this effectively:  The roll out of physical infrastructure;  Education, training and skills;  Allowing systemic and easy access of data and information to enable evidence-based decision making;  Capacity to make data available in ways that enable creative reworking.

R&D institutions have a significant role to play. Increasingly, funding agencies nationally and internationally are making it a requirement that data generated from publicly funded research should be publicly available (in addition to the longer established public repositories of research papers).

In that vein, JCU has established a Tropical Data Hub (TDH); an initiative supported by the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments through the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) and Queensland Cyber Infrastructure Foundation (QCIF) respectively.

The TDH holds extensive data sets from public sector agencies, (AIMS, CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, ANSTO), museums (Australia, Victoria and South Australia), universities (JCU, Adelaide, Central Queensland, Monash, Queensland and Western Australia) as well as scientific, medical, demographic and business data from across the tropical regions including PNG, Southeast Asia, India, Africa and Central and South America.

Another data repository in the region of significance is the e-Atlas initiative that holds significant GBR and Coral Sea data generated by AIMS, CSIRO, JCU, UQ and other research institutions funded by the Commonwealth’s National Environmental Research Program (NERP) and its predecessor program.

In addition to the roll out of high speed broadband there is an urgent need for a coherent strategy around digital developments across northern Australia. A model worth considering is SenseT in Tasmania. This is effectively a ‘network of networks’ that has made available a wide range of data from public and private entities to provide businesses, governments and communities with the tools to make good decisions. SenseT has already galvanised other sectors and firms around the idea that data can be used in creative and productive ways through new applications.

Whether there is a specific northern Australia network or, more likely, effective connections between state-based or sub-region levels is an open question. However, marshalling the various initiatives already underway in local government, regional industry groups and research institutions

into a coherent frame would be a significant long term enabler for existing, emerging and yet to be imagined products, services and industries.

Digital economy and education As a regional University with campuses distributed over hundreds of kilometres across northern Queensland, JCU is well aware of the significant challenges of communicating with and educating our students, and supporting our researchers across diverse and remote physical locations. The University demonstrates strong support for the transformational capability of learning technologies which rely on robust digital infrastructure. Universities in northern Australia are at significant disadvantage to their southern peers in this area, with severely limited network infrastructure, high technology operating and maintenance costs, and very limited access to technology service providers north of Brisbane. The future of education delivery and research in northern Australia will be reliant on the availability, performance and cost of digital infrastructure such as high speed data networks, technology innovation hubs and technology service providers.

TOR 3: Critical economic and social infrastructure

Universities are critical social infrastructure in and of themselves. We have a critical role in developing the education and skills base. This human capital is a major factor in regional success. Concomitantly, the presence of large numbers of people with little human capital also appears to weigh down regional growth (OECD 2012).

Universities also play a generative role through contributing to the development of social capital; the degree of trust, connectedness and capacity for cooperative and co-ordinated endeavour in communities. Social capital has two important aspects; connections within a community and external connections. In a dynamic globalised world, external links are critical to ensure capacity and to identify and manage change. Universities, through staff and student mobility and informal and formal research networks, have enormous capacity and potential to develop and leverage global networks.

Building education and health outcomes and capacity are enduring challenges for northern Australia. Meeting those challenges will be a great enabler, but conversely, if not addressed will impede development opportunities.

Education Improving educational outcomes must be a high priority for the sustainable long term development of northern Australia. In common with other regional and remote regions, educational attainment in northern Queensland is lower than the state and national levels (DEEWR 2013, MCEETYA 2008). For Indigenous students, particularly in remote areas, completion rates are low and there are high rates of disengagement from education (COAG 2012).

The 2013 Next Step Survey conducted by the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment shows that school graduates from northern Queensland were less likely to enter university or campus-based vocational education and training.

Main destination of 2012 year 12 completions

Batchelor VET Seeking Region (ABS Statistical area level 4 and state total) Degree categories work Brisbane Inner City 67.6% 13.7% 3.5%

Cairns 32.1% 21.1% 11.2%

Townsville 32.5% 24.5% 11.3%

Queensland Total 39.4% 24.3% 10.4% Source: Qld DETE, 2013 Next Step survey http://education.qld.gov.au/nextstep/2013regions.html

According to figures from the Queensland Office of Economic and Statistical Research, 21.9 per cent of the northern Queensland and Torres Strait region’s residents aged 15 years and over have a bachelor degree or higher (Queensland, 29.3%), 13.1 per cent had an advanced diploma or diploma (Queensland, 13.9%), and 40.0 per cent had a certificate (Queensland, 36.6%) (cited in DEEWR 2013).

In the smart economy that is coming, high level skills, education and R&D capacity are going to be increasingly important determinants of regional economic capacity and potential.

JCU has a proven educational history in ensuring that our teaching, learning and research is not only of high quality, but also delivers practical benefits to the peoples and institutions of the region, especially rural and remote areas within the tropics. This continues to be evidenced through programs such as the long-standing RATEP program, a community based Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education program offered in partnership with Education Queensland and TAFE.

RATEP delivers and supports VET and tertiary level teacher education courses (Cert lll & lV) in Education, the Diploma of Education and the Bachelor of Education) to 200+ students in more than 25 communities.

Further, JCU has been committed to meeting the educational needs of rural and remote communities through diploma and degree study through flexible learning options, especially through on-campus block-mode and web-based learning.

As well, JCU’s commitment to the region is evidenced in prioritising and supporting pre-service teachers in remote and rural placements for practicum. Similarly, our postgraduate programs in education, especially at the master’s and doctoral level, are sought after by citizens of countries of the South Pacific and South-East Asia.

Despite this positive history, we are acutely aware of the current regional challenges that require expansion of current education provision into school systems in northern Queensland as highlighted by several reports, including the Queensland Audit Office (QAO 2013).

The geography of northern Queensland and the diversity and distribution of its population challenges JCU to consider how we can serve the resourcing needs of schools, as evidenced in, for example, the following four areas:

1. Addressing the ongoing demand for teachers, especially specialist teachers in special needs, information technology, English, mathematics and the sciences, and school administrators. 2. Reducing the teaching and administrator turnover rates that continue to impact on the sustainable development of our rural and remote schools. 3. Serving the professional development requirements of our educational partners such as Catholic Education, Department of Education and Training and TAFE in providing in-service learning opportunities for teacher aides, teachers, administrators, and early-childhood and adult educators. 4. Addressing the ongoing inequity in educational attainment within our region, especially the widening gap in achievement and educational outcome of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students in contrast to the remainder of the regional population (COAG 2012).

Of critical importance is ensuring these efforts are responsive to each community’s aspirations, especially rural and remote communities calling for education initiatives to be grounded in their aspirations and fostered through collaborative action.

These concerns can only be addressed by community-centred approaches that entail working with our education partners to overcome the challenge of distance and diversity.

JCU has implemented a range of strategies to improve pathways and retention in higher education, including:  The University maintains strong relationships with other education providers in the region including working with priority low socioeconomic schools (54 secondary and 103 primary), targeting Year 6 to Year 12, on measures aimed at increasing aspiration, awareness, achievement, affordability and access to tertiary study and pathways.  Delivery of pathway programs to enable increased participation in higher education across higher education. Currently JCU is only funded to deliver 319 EFTSL in sub-degree programs; this compares with other regional universities that have over 500 EFTSL.  Flexible delivery of pathway programs – for example Diplomas - need to be delivered flexibly with students accessing study centres for support. The University supports study centres in remote areas including Torres Strait but there are significant transaction costs involved with such provision.

There is significant scope to improve efficiency and scope. Infrastructure partnerships between VET providers and JCU could also be enabled by more coherent policy around funding of each sector – to support student transitions and joint funding arrangements for course delivery.

JCU is increasingly leveraging the online environment to support quality face-to-face learning experiences. Within the northern Australia region, challenges for leveraging the capacity of this blended and online learning environment include:  Bandwidth and access to high speed internet connections.  Digital learning readiness of potential students. While there are improving levels of computer literacy across the community, these skills don’t assure the capacity to learn online. In a region where at least 60% of the population will be the first in their families to access higher education, a supported transition to online learning is essential. Often this will require student access to designated study centres to access support from skilled learning advisers.  Investment in appropriate ICT infrastructure within the higher education environment. At JCU this includes an urgent need to develop more robust online learning infrastructure including media production facilities.

 A need to significantly invest in academic staff development for online learning including the appointment of educational designers to translate face-to-face learning to the online environment with innovative models for blended learning.

Health JCU has a long history of health workforce training in northern Australia, across the health professions of medicine, nursing, allied health and, more recently, dentistry. This training has built on an in-depth understanding of the unique health and health workforce needs of northern Australia, most notably in the areas of rural and remote health, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and tropical diseases.

JCU has built extensive networks with other training providers, health services and communities across Australia’s north and continues to work closely with these stakeholders to identify and meet new and ongoing health and health workforce challenges. For example, JCU is the host organisation of the recently established Greater Northern Australia Regional Training Network (GNARTN), which collaboratively with JCU has commenced work to build clinical placement and health workforce capacity across northern Australia.

Internationally, JCU has built strong relationships with Australia’s near neighbours in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific to meet shared health workforce challenges. For example, JCU works closely with education and research organisations in Papua New Guinea to collaborate on research projects and establish clinical rotations. JCU is also increasing its involvement in health policy development in the region, for example through representation at APEC and via JCU’s two WHO Collaborating Centres: the WHO Collaborating Centre for Lymphatic Filariasis and Soil-Transmitted Helminths; and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Education and Research Capacity Building.

These activities underscore JCU’s growing intellectual leadership in the region and highlight the potential for JCU to spearhead new initiatives to both: 1) meet health shared health and health workforce challenges, and 2) grasp new engagement opportunities.

Health care in northern Australia has different characteristics to that in other parts of Australia. Unique challenges include the markedly higher prevalence of chronic, acute and vaccine-preventable diseases in rural, remote and Indigenous Australia compared with the rest of Australia, and ongoing health workforce maldistribution between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.

Northern Australia needs to continue to build capacity to address these ongoing challenges. In doing so, and by recognising new and growing health system challenges, northern Australia can be a leader in health systems strengthening, both within Australia and within our region internationally.

Growing health system challenges, stemming from epidemiological and demographic transitions, threaten development goals across the world. Non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes are responsible for an ever-greater share of the disease burden, and populations in many countries are ageing. For some less developed countries in our region, these changes are occurring while infectious diseases are still prevalent, resulting in a debilitating ‘double burden’ of disease. These changes present huge challenges for health systems, including for health workforce development, and are receiving close attention globally as the United Nations urges governments to implement the goal of universal health coverage.

There is an opportunity for northern Australia to provide leadership via a health education, research and training network, focused on these pressing challenges. A Tropical Academic Health Centre,

similar to the model proposed in the McKeon Review of Health and Medical Research and involving both the health and education systems, would provide an integrated approach to: training health professionals; developing high quality health and workforce research; and building linkages with essential stakeholders in other countries.

Investment in health research and education capacity in northern Australia has the potential to further expand northern Australia’s knowledge economy by delivering exportable health system innovations. Northern Australia, as a leader in health systems strengthening, can spearhead knowledge-sharing and health professional mobility between countries, deepening relationships and benefiting soft diplomacy. For Australia’s near neighbours, harnessing our expertise to provide education and training services, and innovations to meet pressing health care challenges, will assist these countries to develop their health systems and health workforce to meet the complex and evolving healthcare needs of growing populations.

References Babacan, H. et al, (2012). Science Engagement And Tropical Australia: Building A Prosperous And Sustainable Future For The North. http://www.innovation.gov.au/science/InspiringAustralia/ExpertWorkingGroup/Documents/Tropical RegionEWGreport.pdf

Council of Australian Governments (2012). Closing the Gap in Indigenous Disadvantage. http://www.coag.gov.au/closing_the_gap_in_indigenous_disadvantage

CSIRO (2009). Sustainable Development for Northern Australia: a comprehensive science review. http://www.csiro.au/Organisation-Structure/Flagships/Sustainable-Agriculture-Flagship/Northern- Australia-Sustainable-Development.aspx

Dale, Alan, (2013). Governance challenges for northern Australia . Cairns, QLD, Australia: Cairns Institute, James Cook University.

DEEWR, Office of Regional Education, Skills and Jobs (2013). Regional education, Skills and Jobs Plan, Queensland - Far North Queensland and Torres Strait - 2012 –2014. http://docs.employment.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/resj_queensland_far_north_queensland_an d_torres_strait.pdf

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (2008). Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians. http://www.mceetya.edu.au/verve/_resources/NationalDeclaration_on_the_Educational_Goals_for _Young_Australians.pdf.

OECD (2012). Promoting Growth In All Regions http://www.oecd.org/gov/regional- policy/promotinggrowthinallregions.htm (A useful summary document is available at http://www.oecd.org/site/govrdpc/49995986.pdf)

Pearce, Philip, (2013). Initiatives for the development of tourism in tropical Australia . The Future of Northern Australia Discussion Paper Series. Cairns: The Cairns Institute.

Prideaux, Bruce (2013). An investigation into factors that may affect the long term environmental and economic sustainability of tourism in northern Australia. The Future of Northern Australia Discussion Paper Series. Cairns: The Cairns Institute.

Queensland Audit Office (2012). Follow up of 2010 Audit Recommendations. https://www.qao.qld.gov.au/files/file/Reports%202012/WebversionRTP2012- 13Followup2010auditrecommendationWeb.pdf

Sen Gupta, T., Murray r., Hays R., Woolley T., (2013). James Cook University MBBS graduate intentions and intern destinations: a comparative study with other Queensland and Australian medical schools Rural and Remote Health 13: 2313. (Online) 2013. http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/showarticlenew.asp?ArticleID=2313

Stoeckl, N., et al (2013). An integrated assessment of financial, hydrological, ecological and social impacts of ‘development’ on Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in northern Australia, Biological Conservation, Volume 159, March 2013, Pages 214–221.

Turnour, J., McShane, C., Thompson, M., Dale, A., Prideaux, B., & Atkinson, M. (2013). Accounting for agriculture in place-based frameworks for regional development: Discussion paper . Cairns: James Cook University.

Welters, Riccardo (2013). The Australian defence organisation and tropical Australia: Its socioeconomic impact in Cairns, Darwin and Townsville . The Future of Northern Australia Discussion Paper Series. Cairns: The Cairns Institute.

Western Research Institute (2013). James Cook University, Impacts On The Regional And State Economies, Contribution To Human Capital, Impacts Of Research. http://www.jcu.edu.au/cppo/public/groups/everyone/documents/annual_report/jcu_127230.pdf