Coolabah, No.19, 2016, ISSN 1988-5946, Observatori: Centre d’Estudis Australians / Australian 

Studies Centre, Universitat de Barcelona 
 

1 
 

 

Introduction 

 

 

Sue Ballyn 

The Australian Studies Centre 

Universitat de Barcelona 

susan.ballyn@gmail.com  

 

 

Copyright©2016 Sue Ballyn. This text may be archived and 

redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, 

provided that the author and journal are properly cited and 

no fee is charged, in accordance with our Creative Common 

Licence. 

 

 

Associate Professor Justin Dabner spent part of the academic year 2014-2015 as a Visiting Fellow 

at the Australian Studies Centre at Barcelona University. 

The Centre was enriched by his willingness to participate in the day to day work of the Centre and 

in the many discussions that took place with members of the Department staff who regularly drop 

in and out of the Centre. Typically, Dabner accepted to bring out a monograph volume of Coolabah 

on aspects of law. His idea in a first instance was to include other authors but this did not 

materialize as authors he approached were already committed and with a burden of deadlines, the 

bane of all academics. 

Martin Renes and I then floated the idea that he should be the sole author and we would send out 

the peer reference sheets. Dabner agreed and thus this volume came into being. It is not atypical 

among the issues of Coolabah as there have been other monograph issues with a single author. 

In this volume Dabner deals with the complications that arise in a nation which takes the model of 

British Common law for its judiciary, for both Indigenous people and its multicultural society. As 

Dabner posits, “Taking the instances of Indigenous and Islamic law, it will be observed that legal 

plurality exists in Australia but largely in the shadows where the vulnerable of society lack 

protection. It proposes an institutional response that might help shine a light on these shadows” 

 

In a second article, Dabner moves into a totally different terrain, climate change, a subject of 

concern for every nation and one touched on by Bill Boyd in his monograph edition of Coolabah: 

Postcolonial Times: Lock the Gate or Pull Down the Fences?  

mailto:susan.ballyn@gmail.com


Coolabah, No.19, 2016, ISSN 1988-5946, Observatori: Centre d’Estudis Australians / Australian 

Studies Centre, Universitat de Barcelona 
 

2 
 

 

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/coolabah/issue/view/1328 

 

Dabner points out that climate change, responsible environmental politics and action are, perhaps, 

Australia’s “greatest moral challenge” notwithstanding other moral challenges such as those represented by 

“(…) The treatment of the first Australians, of refugees, of non-European immigrants, of same sex 

orientated individuals (…).” Australia, like the rest of the world, must meet this challenge if the 

planet is to survive. 

 

Sue Ballyn 

21st November 2016  

http://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/coolabah/issue/view/1328