CQUniversity Australia
 

Engaging Indigenous people within Higher Ed

CQUniversity's Office of Indigenous Engagement recently hosted a visit from the Oodgeroo Unit of Queensland University of Technology (QUT), at Rockhampton Campus.

Professor Anita Lee Hong, Director of the Oodgeroo Unit, and Lone Pearce, Project Officer, met with Office of Indigenous Engagement staff to discuss employment issues and best practice models for engaging Indigenous people within the higher education sector, including governance matters.

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CQUni leads study as resource sector growth impacts on transport systems 

CQUniversity is leading a national research team awarded an Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) grant to identify the key issues for regional transport systems (air and road) arising from the cumulative impacts of resource sector growth.

The team has been awarded $91,443 to focus on the implications of transport infrastructure across the economic, social, environmental and safety domains in the northern Bowen Basin region in Central Queensland.

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Some of the key issues for the coal mining industry include productivity interruptions during flooding due to employee inaccessibility; fatigue risk and road safety for non-resident employees; and the liveability impacts of resource-based communities due to congestion of freight and passenger transport networks between mining communities and their service hubs.

Project lead Dr Susan Kinnear is working with CQUniversity colleagues Dr Delwar Akbar and Julie Mann in a team including Professor Prem Chhetri from RMIT, Dr Phil Smith from UQ and ACARP project mentors Mahdi Mason (from Caledon Coal) and Madeleine Verdich (from Rio Tinto).

Dr Kinnear said that the research project is of national strategic importance because, even though the case study location for the project is the northern Bowen Basin region of Central Queensland, it is anticipated that the research results will be transferable across a range of other regional mining operations (e.g., Surat and Galilee Basins, Hunter Valley, Pilbara).

"What is also important is that this research is in partnership with other universities within Australia and in the long term will populate environmental and social impact assessment statements by resource sector proponents," she said.

Professor Chhetri said that a key feature of the project will be to use whole-of-region stakeholder consultation to focus on finding solutions to emerging transport issues.

"This research will benefit the coal mining sector by generating datasets that will be useful in designing and delivering a more effective transport network," he said.

"In particular, the data can be used to underpin strategic decision-making and investment by both private and public entities delivering an integrated roadway system, comprising amongst others continuous haulage, logistics and equipment."

The ACARP project is entitled The cumulative impact of growth on regional transport infrastructure: Central Queensland case study. ACARP is a research program of the Australian Coal Research Ltd (ACR) which is a company established by the Australian black coal industry to manage all aspects of the program.  ACARP's mission is to research, develop and demonstrate technologies that lead to the safe, sustainable production and utilisation of coal.

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