Northern Australia comprises roughly half of the Australian continent, but certainly receives less than half the attention from policymakers. It’s a region with challenging geography, wide cultural diversity, and enduring social inequality, and ever since Federation, it’s been the subject of grand thought bubbles from politicians with visions of turning the region into Australia’s next economic powerhouse.

On this week’s podcast, hosts Sharon Bessell and Quentin Grafton hear from Peter Yu about the economic, geographic and development challenges facing the north, and why there might in fact be more solutions than problems.

Peter Yu is a Yawuru Man from Broome in the Kimberley region in North West Australia with over 35 years’ experience in Indigenous development and advocacy in the Kimberley and at the state, national and international level.

Sharon Bessell is the Director of the Children’s Policy Centre in Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.

Quentin Grafton is Editor-in-Chief of Policy Forum. He is Professor of Economics at Crawford School of Public Policy, Convenor of the Global Actions on Human Water Security, Director of the Centre for Water Economics, Environment and Policy (CWEEP) and Director of the Food, Energy, Environment and Water (FE2W) Network.

Show notes | The following were referred to in this episode:

Collaborative governance for the Sustainable Development Goals – an Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies journal article by Ann Florini & Markus Pauli

Podcast: Australia’s light bulb moment – with Emma Aisbett, Paul Burke and Matt Stocks

Policy Forum Pod is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum or find us on Facebook.

This episode of Policy Forum Pod was produced by Martyn Pearce. It was edited by Julia Ahrens.

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