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and his mate to try to run him off the road
and shake a rifle at him? And how did he know he was going to the
conference? He wondered whether he should report the incident to
the police but reasoned that it would be just his word against
Blakey’s.
    After two hours driving Jake reached the
turn-off to the Kakadu Highway and it took him another two hours
before he reached the boundaries of Kakadu National Park. He had
been to Kakadu once before and thought it had a strange beauty and
uniqueness. He had read that the park covers 20,000 square
kilometres, extending 200 kilometres north-south and 100 kilometres
east-west. It was listed as a world heritage park because of its
huge bio-diversity and ecology accounting for a large proportion of
Australia’s waterbirds, fish, insects, mammals, crocodiles and
plant life. Its enormous bio-diversity extends from the coasts and
estuaries in the north through to flood plains, wetlands and
lowlands to rocky ridges and rugged sandstone plateaus to the
south.
    He turned off when he saw the sign to the
Yellow Water Resort, a newly built hotel on the edge of the Yellow
Water wetlands, which was the venue for the conference. The hotel
was magnificent taking the shape of a turtle. It was extensive with
two stories set into a tropical landscape surrounded by pools,
waterfalls, gardens and a golf course.
    Jake pulled into the car park and entered
the hotel lobby. The foyer was tastefully furnished with huge
aboriginal dot paintings and wildlife murals decorating the
walls.
    The entire hotel had been booked out for the
conference and security was particularly tight. His identity was
checked by a security official and he was ushered to a reception
desk manned by one of the hotel staff and a DFAT official who gave
him his room key, identity card, programme and briefing pack. He
found his way into his room on to the second floor and gratefully
sat down on a lounge chair, still slightly shaken from his ordeal.
He grabbed a beer from the mini-bar, stripped off and took a long
cool shower, feeling the tension gradually easing from his body. He
looked around the hotel room which was small but comfortable with a
view of the tropical gardens and beyond that of the wetlands. The
walls were painted in earth colours and adorned by prints of
tropical flowers and the wetlands. There was a king-sized bed, two
lounge chairs, a coffee table and a small desk with internet
connection along one wall. He sipped his beer and settled into a
lounge chair reading the programme and briefing material for the
conference. He had an hour before his first meeting with the
Australian officials’ delegation at 5 p.m.
    Jake’s role in the lead up to the
negotiations had been to persuade key Japanese officials to provide
improved access into the Japanese market for Australian exports of
goods and services, particularly in the agricultural area. As
Senior Trade Commissioner he had the diplomatic title of Minister
Commercial in the Australian Embassy and had developed excellent
rapport with officials from the Japanese ministries involve in
international trade and various Japanese business groups and key
corporations. His fluency in Japanese, knowledge of Japanese
business practices and network of contacts in the government
bureaucracy had been instrumental in bringing the Japanese to the
negotiating table. He had earned grudging respect from senior staff
of the Australian Embassy in Tokyo who often treated the
non-diplomatic staff as poor cousins.
    Jake was assigned to the working party
looking at market access which had been the main sticking point in
previous negotiations. From Australia’s point of view the central
issue was access to the Japanese market for agricultural products
where Japan had been reluctant to open up its markets for products
such as wheat, beef, sugar, fruit and vegetables, rice and dairy
products, mainly due to resistance from its politically powerful
farmers’ lobby groups. While there was a trade