In Semut, Christine Helliwell shares the astonishing story of an Australian secret operation’s brutal guerrilla campaign against the Japanese that was launched in the final months of WWII in the Borneo jungle. Join Christine in conversation with former Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith, as she shares the lives and traditions of the Dayaks in this unique account of two very different cultures.

Christine Helliwell is a New Zealand-born anthropologist, author and academic, currently Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University. She has been carrying out research on Borneo’s indigenous Dayak peoples – including living with them in their communities for months at a time – for almost forty years, and has written widely on Dayak social and cultural life. Since 2014 Christine has been researching WWII in Borneo, with a particular interest in the special operations conducted there by the Australian secret organisation codenamed Services Reconnaissance Department, popularly known as Z Special Unit. Her book Semut – on the most important of the Borneo ‘Z’ operations – is her first book for a general readership.

Professor Stephen Smith has been a Professor of Public International Law at the University of Western Australia since 2014. He is currently the Chair of Sapien Cyber, Chair of the UWA Defence and Security Institute, Chair of the Advisory Board of the UWA Public Policy Institute, and a member of the Board of the Perth USAsia Centre. Professor Smith was Federal Member for Perth for the Australian Labor Party from March 1993 until September 2013. In a distinguished career spanning 20 years in the Australian Federal Parliament, Professor Smith served as the Minister for Defence, and prior to that, as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Trade.