EDITION 2 2014 LAWYER LEADS WHERE DO BIG FISH ODE TO RESILIENT, FIGHT AGAINST GO IN THE CONTRADICTORY MODERN SLAVERY WET SEASON? DARWIN EDITION 2 2014 ORIGINS FEATURES REGULARS Lawyer leads fight 3 8 against modern slavery From the Vice-Chancellor 4 Social ills grow as goals Snapshot 10 move out of sight 26 Q and A 12 Partners in slime 28 CDU publishing achievements Where do big fish go in 14 the wet season? 30 CDU art collection Picture emerges of 31 16 northern dolphins Art exhibition Neridah Stockley: a retrospective Welcome to the first Charles Darwin Scholar 19 32 Limited edition Refreshing research 20 targets heat stress Finding hope for the 22 future in the past Ode to resilient, 24 contradictory Darwin Young musician 29 reaches for the sky ORIGINS Origins magazine is produced by Charles Darwin University’s Office of Media, Advancement and Community Engagement (MACE). MACE is grateful to the following people for their contributions and assistance in compiling this edition: Lucy Barnard, Penelope Bergen, Matt Brearley, Janet Browne, Bobby Bunungurr, David Crook, Carla Eisemberg, John Firth-Smith, CONTRIBUTORS Felicity Gerry, Dan Hartney, Amy Kimber, Michael Lawrence-Taylor, Tess Lea, Michael Lindsey, KATIE WEISS Robyn Marsh, Hana Morrissey, Simon Moss, Elspeth Opperman, Carol Palmer, Heidi Smith- One of the newest writers to join Origins is Charles Vaughan, Neridah Stockley and Ruth Thornton. Darwin University’s Media Officer Katie Weiss. Katie recently moved to Darwin and was formerly a Opinions and views expressed in this edition do journalist with the mainstream media. Her writing not necessarily reflect those of Charles Darwin has featured in a range of publications nationally University. and internationally. In her first edition of Origins, Reproduction of material from Origins requires Katie tackles hard-hitting issues surrounding human written permission from Robyn McDougall, trafficking victims and perpetrators. She also [email protected] investigates a curious story about virtual bush tours. Published October 2014 PATRICK NELSON This edition is also available at Regional Public Relations Officer Patrick Nelson talks W: cdu.edu.au/mace to PhD candidate Penelope Bergen about her study into how the meeting of two cultures in remote Indigenous CRICOS Provider No. 00300K (NT), Australia may inform better policy. And he catches No. 03286A (NSW) up with VET music graduate Michael Lindsey about RTO Provider No. 0373 his solo performance at BASSINTHEGRASS. Based in Editor: Robyn McDougall Alice Springs, Patrick also captured our inside cover Project manager: Julia Collingwood photograph in which a vivid morning rainbow touches Designer: R.T.J. Klinkhamer the MacDonnell Ranges after a brief winter shower. Printer: Lane Print + Post JANE HAMPSON Text face: Centennial In her first contribution to Origins, writer Jane Display face: Helvetica Neue Light Hampson interviews Associate Professor Tess Lea Origins is printed from vegetable-based inks and about her new book, Darwin. A born and bred 98 per cent of waste and by-products of the Territorian, and Adjunct Professor at CDU, Dr Lea’s process have been recycled into paper products, character study of her hometown was published alternative fuels and miscellaneous materials. earlier this year and gives some revealing insights into the forces that have shaped the Top End capital. Jane The paper used in this edition of Origins is carbon is Special Projects Writer with CDU’s Office of Media, neutral and is manufactured with 55 per cent Advancement and Community Engagement. recycled content. It has been manufactured by a Certified Printer using Elemental Chlorine LEANNE COLEMAN Free (ECF) pulp sourced from sustainable, well- In her eighth edition of Origins, science communicator managed forests. and CDU’s Senior Media Officer Leanne Coleman Cover: Shutterstock.com image. covers two unique research projects specific to Inside cover: Rainbow connection – just as a the Northern Territory. She reveals research by a light shower of winter rain promised to quench conservation ecologist that will help preserve local Central Australia’s desert landscape, it signed off dolphin populations. She also talks to researchers with this vivid rainbow above the MacDonnell about a project that could have significant impacts on Ranges. Photographer: Patrick Nelson, June the way workers handle heat stress. 2014. 2 ORIGINS 2 / 2014 FROM THE VICE-CHANCELLOR Celebrating our first quarter century his is a year of celebration for Since CDU’s predecessor institution, maturing as an education and training Charles Darwin University and the the Northern Territory University, provider, and the high-calibre of our Tentire Northern Territory. In what opened in 1989 many thousands of local research. can only be described as an outstanding people have received their education In this edition we explore how achievement, 2014 marks the 25th and training without leaving home. lawyers can take a central role in anniversary of university education in And increasingly as the education identifying victims of human trafficking. this large, remote and lightly populated environment evolves thousands of Some 21 million people worldwide are jurisdiction. people from across Australia have estimated to be victims of this shocking During the 1980s, the people of the completed their university education crime. Northern Territory campaigned long through CDU. We also follow work at Menzies and hard for the Federal Government’s We therefore have much to celebrate School of Health Research, which is support to establish a university. As in this 25th anniversary year. Apart using DNA-sequencing technologies to these pioneers rightly saw it, when from well attended celebrations in uncover bacterial mechanisms that lead young people were forced to move south Darwin, Alice Springs and Palmerston, to the development and persistence or east for their university education and later this year at Katherine, we of chronic infections in Indigenous the risk was high that they would not have also compiled a written history children. return. of university education in the NT And we introduce you to the The NT needed, and continues to and produced a video entitled “Our university’s first Charles Darwin Scholar, need, educated and skilled residents university: A brief history of CDU”. To Professor Janet Browne. I hope you to build a strong local economy and access these and other information enjoy this edition. society. The NT certainly could not about our quarter-century milestone, I afford to allow the talent drain to invite you to visit W: cdu.edu.au/25th- Professor Simon Maddocks continue and many NT families could anniversary/oral-histories. Vice-Chancellor not afford the emotional and financial In the meantime, this edition of strain of sending away their children. Origins reflects how the university is 3 ORIGINS 2 / 2014 SNAPSHOT Darwin’s lost Population library found projections A treasure-trove of lost library books used by naturalist Charles Darwin on help reveal the 1831–1836 voyage of the Beagle has been launched at CDU in collaboration NT’s future with the National University of The proportion of Territorians aged Singapore. 65 years and over is projected to more The library has been re-constructed than double by 2041. Researchers at the as part of Darwin Online, a project Northern Institute have been working directed by National University of with the Northern Territory Department Singapore historian of science and CDU of Treasury and Finance to develop Professorial Fellow John van Wyhe, population projections for the NT and with funding support from CDU and the its regions. The projections map the CDU Foundation. changing population for the Territory Dr van Wyhe said that at the end of to the year 2041 and indicate future the voyage the library was dispersed growth in the demands for services and and its contents had remained a infrastructure. mystery. Northern Institute Senior Research “In the 1980s, the editors of the Fellow, Dr Andrew Taylor said that Correspondence of Charles Darwin population change fluctuated greatly reconstructed a list of 132 works that CDU Professorial Fellow John van Wyhe helps in the NT with high rates of growth were probably in the library based on very dependent on major construction evidence from Darwin’s notes and other launch the Charles Darwin’s Beagle Library from Singapore. projects. sources. Combining previous lists with “Based on historical evidence and new research, we have created our anticipated trends, we anticipate long- catalogue of 181 works.” of Science University of Singapore, and term growth to continue at around The Beagle library project was CDU and the CDU Foundation. To view 1.5 per cent a year, which would see funded by the Singapore Government’s the library, visit W: darwin-online.org. the Territory’s population reach about Ministry of Education and supported uk. 360,000 by 2041,” he said. by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty “We are expecting the Territory’s Indigenous population to grow at around the same rate as the Territory average,” Dr Taylor said. “Perhaps Students bound for S-E Asia the most significant compositional population change anticipated is Up to 72 undergraduate students will Eligible School of Law undergradu- very high growth in the number of take up short-term study opportunities ates will study and research Territorians aged 65 years and over, in Southeast Asia during the next year, international law at Gadjah Mada which, in proportional terms, is following