Join Ellen As She Takes Us to Her Grandpa's Drought-Stricken Farm

BtN: Episode 05 Transcript 3/03/15

Coming up:

 Australia's biggest survey - the census might be changed to save cash. We find out how.

 Join Ellen as she takes us to her Grandpa's drought-stricken farm.

 And meet the kid running a successful fashion business at just 14.

Hi I'm Nathan and that's just some of the stuff you'll see a bit later on BtN, but first. Death Debate Reporter: Carl Smith

INTRO: Most people agree that if someone commits a crime they should do the time. But what if the punishment for the crime isn't time in jail? What if it's capital punishment or the death penalty, something Australia stopped many years ago? That's the debate going on right now as two Australian citizens face exactly that in Indonesia. Carl looked into it.

These two men were arrested for breaking the law. They're two members of a group called the Bali Nine. A group that attempted to smuggle drugs out of Bali, Indonesia in 2005. But they were caught.

Seven members of the group were sentenced to life in prison, something that can happen in Australia too. But Indonesia's laws are stricter than Australia's for some crimes, and that's meant the two men in charge, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, have been sentenced to death.

That's also known as capital punishment. In Australia we don't have laws that allow criminals to be sentenced to death, but that wasn't always the case.

The last person killed here because of the death penalty was this man. It happened not so long ago, in 1967. His name was Ronald Ryan. He was hanged for shooting a prison officer during a jail-break. Many people pushed for a different outcome and there were lots of big protests before and after. And by 1985 each of the states and territories had removed capital punishment from their laws.

There are a few reasons why that happened. Jails and rehabilitation programs to help criminals were improving, which meant people could more easily turn their lives

1 around after committing a crime. Others argued some people might be wrongfully convicted of a crime and sentenced to death before the error is discovered, so life imprisonment would be a better option.

Although things have now changed here, capital punishment laws haven't changed everywhere around the world. Most countries have abolished it, but more than 50 still have the death sentence for some crimes. And they include big or wealthy countries like Japan, Indonesia and parts of the United States, but also smaller countries like Tonga and North Korea. Of all those nations still using capital punishment China has the largest known number of people sentenced to death each year.

There are people who say the death penalty is an appropriate punishment for some very serious crimes, and they say having such a harsh sentence can stop people from breaking the law.

Then there are others who don't agree with capital punishment but say Bali Nine members Chan and Sukumaran knew about Indonesia's strict laws when they tried to commit a crime there, so they should face Indonesia's punishment for it.

But many are also fighting for the lives of Chan and Sukumaran. They say they were arrested as young men, and have tried hard to build new lives away from crime. They also say there's always hope for someone to turn their life around and that the death penalty is just too harsh.

The Prime Minister has asked Indonesia for mercy.

TONY ABBOTT: My plea even at this late stage is for Indonesia to be as responsive to us as it expects other countries to be for them

And lawyers in Indonesia have been trying hard to have the sentences of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran overturned.

Although time may be running out, they say they'll keep fighting. The Wire

In other news this week the government's announced plans to put security guards and CCTV systems in a bunch of Aussie schools. It wants to make sure kids are safe from racial or terrorist attacks. So it's going to pay for security at more than 50 schools considered to be at high risk. It'll cost around 18 million dollars.

2 A new survey has revealed a majority of Aussie school kids don't have high hopes for their future. It also found that less than one third of kids think they'll get a good job. It's got some people worried there's too much pressure on kids to do well.

But this week a lot of kids were more worried about something far less serious - this dress! Yes, the question has been raging all week is it blue and black? Or gold and white? People legitimately see it in different colours. And scientists say it all comes down to our brains playing a trick on us!

And students across the country armed with gloves and bins took part in clean up Australia day! Australia is one of the highest waste producers in the world making about 18 million tonnes of rubbish every year, which can be a real problem for our environment and wildlife. But more than two thousand schools hit the streets to help tackle our rubbish problem one piece at a time. Census Changes Reporter: Matt Holbrook

INTRO: Every five years, the government holds Australia's biggest poll. It's called the census and it asks every person in the country about nearly every detail of their lives. But now, there's been a call to delay the census from every five years to every ten to save money. Here's Matt with the details.

A long time ago in an Australia far, far away there was a census.

MATT: Actually, it wasn't that long ago, it was in 2011. And it wasn't that far away, either. But that's not the point. In the last census, 65,000 Australians claimed to follow the Jedi religion. Yeah, with the light-sabers, the force, and these incredibly fetching robes. It turns out most of those people were just trying to be funny. Most.

But while the Jedi stuff might not be super helpful, the census does actually tell us really important information about Australia, and has done for a long, long time. The first Aussie census was done back in 1911. The census collects information like, age, gender, income, what you do, and where you live.

These days, it's held every five years on the second Tuesday in August. It's a survey that's mailed out to people, or they can do it online. It's compulsory. That means every Australian citizen has to do it, although some questions, like the one about religion, are optional.

The census is there to tell us about the kind of people, and places that make up Australia. Like which areas are growing in population, or where there are young families, or older people. That's really important, because governments can then decide where new schools, hospitals, businesses or death stars should go.

3 So why would we think about changing the census? Well, for starters, the census costs a fair chunk of change.

PETER MCDONALD, AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY: It costs a lot of money, over $400 million. That's acknowledged.

It wouldn't mean abandoning the census entirely though, it'd probably just be held every ten years instead. Which is what happens in the US, and the UK. The Australian Bureau of Statistics says it could collect population info in other ways, too. So increasing the time between censuses might not be as big a deal as it seems. But, even so, a lot of people aren't happy about it. They say the data's really important and if it's out of date, it could cause serious problems, because a big part of using census data is comparing it to previous years.

BERNARD SALT DEMOGRAPHER, KPMG: A country like Australia with 24 million people spread out across a vast continent, we, more than anyone else, need to be very efficient in our resource allocation and you need a census, really, to do that.

While the fate of the census isn't yet decided, it seems, like the force, it's always going to be with us. Or is that with you? I don't know.

Online Poll

So do you support only having the census every ten years to save some cash?

That question is this week's poll.

Should the census be delayed to save money?

We'd love to know what you think. So head to our website to place your vote.

Last week we ran a story on solar power. So we asked you if all homes should have panels on the roof? More than 4 and a half thousand of you voted and most want solar panels everywhere. Thanks for sharing your point of view. Wave Energy Reporter: Carl Smith

INTRO: Now, the world's first grid-connected wave energy farm has just been switched on in Western Australia. It amazingly converts the power of ocean waves into electricity. But how? Carl explains.

4 There's a huge amount of power in the ocean, it's one of the most impressive parts of our world. These surges of energy that we call waves can even be a lot of fun. But have you ever stopped and wondered 'where do waves come from'? And how come they never stop rolling in like that? Well let's have a look at how they're formed.

It might surprise you to hear the energy in a wave actually comes from the wind. More than 70 per-cent of the Earth's surface is covered in water, and when wind blows over the surface of all that water, it causes friction. That pushes some parts of the water down, and in turn other areas are pushed up - these areas of water then start spinning in a circle. Which is the beginning of a wave!

And the more wind the bigger those waves can get. But it's only when waves get closer to land that the spinning effect bobs us up and down on the surface and eventually causes waves to crash on the sand. That up and down energy of waves is constantly happening all along Australia's shores. But there are some places like Tasmania and Western Australia where the waves are more powerful, and it's places like that where these things could be installed.

They might look a bit strange, but they're wave energy generators from the world's first wave energy farm connected to the electricity grid just outside Perth. The site has an on-shore plant connected to buoys out at sea. They sit below the surface of the water, and out there these giant floaties move up and down all day, every day because of the constant circular motion of waves.

The buoys are connected to pipes that pump water at high pressure back to the power plant. That forces turbines to spin to make electricity, and that electricity is being used right now to power a nearby naval base. So are we going to be seeing more of these things bobbing around our coastlines?

Well possibly, but probably not anytime soon. While there is a lot of wave energy that we could tap into in Australia. The best sites are often far away in isolated areas. And if there is a good site near a city or town some people are worried the wave generators could disrupt beaches surf breaks or even underwater environments.

On top of that most wave energy generators are still pretty experimental, meaning engineers and researchers are still working on the best ways to build them and they can be expensive to set up.

So for now the closest things to wave generators most of us will see at the beach will be these - which are still quite fetching. But maybe one day we'll have more of these, bobbing away below the surface as we all swim above. Quiz 1

5 Okay we've got a wave quiz for you now.

How high was the world's highest recorded wave?

Or 5000m

Answer: 500m

It was 524m high to be exact and it was a tsunami in Alaska caused by a huge bit of rock falling into a bay. Drought Doco Reporter: Natasha Thiele

INTRO: Okay moving far away from the water. And many farmers around Australia are struggling with drought right now including 10-year old Ellen's grandpa. She went to visit him recently and decided to film how bad conditions were there to show her class back in the city. Here's what happened.

ELLEN: Hi BtN! I want to show you a video that I made of my Grandad's farm. My teacher thought it would be a good idea to take some photos, instead I made a video. I hope you like it!

My Grandfather and Uncle Jeffrey and my Aunt Sue own properties four hours north of Brisbane at a place called Coalstoun Lakes. They have not had any decent rain since January 2013. All the cattle that could be sold has been sold. The rest we are trying to keep alive by feeding.

During a drought there is no rainfall for the grass and no rainfall to fill dams. Without water, the cattle will die. To feed the water to the cattle during the drought, we sometimes use bore water. Here we are placing a tank on the hill. We pump underground bore water up to the tank, which feeds down to a trough for the cattle.

A common thing that happens during the drought is the cattle have no food. If a mother cow dies and it still has a calf that is still suckling, the calf is left without food. This is Fergus, his mum had died and we found him with his head down looking very unwell. We are hand-feeding him a special powdered calf milk mixture. You can see how weak he is as he can't stand and keeps falling. Unfortunately after days of hand- feeding, Fergus died.

6 This is my 86-year old Grandad Raymond putting out hay with my help. Hay is expensive. We are feeding eight of these large bales a day. This costs $300 a day. Drought is expensive. It seems like forever 'til it will rain, please pray for rain for us and our farmers.

After making the video, I had a chance to show it to my class. Many of them didn't realise how bad drought can be.

STUDENT 1: I saw how much it can actually affect people and animals.

STUDENT 2: Not many of us knew much about it, so it was actually more devastating than you would've thought it would be.

My video had an effect on others too. Some kids have even offered to help my Grandpa, but what he really needs is rain to help his land and his animals. And although there's been a bit of rain since I made the video, we're hoping more will come soon! Quiz 2

Quiz time again. We'll stay with droughts for this one.

How much of Queensland was suffering drought conditions in 2014?

Was it

Or 80%

The Answer: 80%

Crazy. Okay sport time now. Here's this week's hottest moments. The Score

In the Cricket World Cup the two co-hosts Australia and New Zealand met on the weekend in a nail-biter. The Aussies were bowled out for just 151 as Trent Boult caused a middle order collapse. New Zealand looked set for a big win especially after

7 captain Brendan McCullum blazed his way to 50 off 24 balls even after injuring his arm!

But Mitchell Starc struck claiming 6 wickets and bringing the competition right down to the wire. New Zealand survived with Kane Williamson smashing a six to win by just 1 wicket.

In the NBL the Cairns Taipans will meet the New Zealand Breakers in this season's Grand Final. Minor premiers Cairns defeated the Perth Wildcats to book their place. While the Breakers showed their form against Adelaide breezing past the 36ers in a 2 nil sweep. The teams will meet in a best of three series starting on Friday night in Cairns.

In the V8 supercars James Courtney has won the Adelaide 500. He's just the third driver to win the race two years running. There were plenty of crashes over the event. But all eyes were on Courtney yesterday. As he held back teammate Garth Tander for the big win.

And the 2015 trans-Tasman netball championship started over the weekend with the Adelaide Thunderbirds losing by one goal to Waikato Bay of Plenty. The Melbourne Vixens pulled off a convincing win against the Central Pulse. While the Swifts beat the Southern Steel by six points. Kid Business Reporter: Eloise Fuss

INTRO: A lot of fashion designers dream of creating a brand that blows up and becomes really successful. But not too many can say they're already on the way at just 14 years of age. Lachlan makes t-shirts in his bedroom. And now, he's selling them internationally through his website. Eloise met him to find out what his secret is.

LOKI: Hey I'm Loki, I run an Adelaide based clothing line, I sell my gear across Australia and sometimes overseas.

It all started when he tried tie dying t-shirts with some mates. It was fun, and looked pretty cool too.

LOKI: I think we saw that people liked them and I saw it could be a good business to run, it was fun to make. So I thought yeah, I may as well go for it.

Loki's called his brand Size Seven Clothing Co.

8 LOKI: How I come up with the designs. I'll draw a concept and take it to a local artist and get them to redraw it so it looks professional and good, because I'm a terrible drawer, I can't draw anything if I tried.

Loki prints all the t-shirts himself using a technique called screen printing. Each t- shirt takes about three days to make.

LOKI: You've got to individually print or cure each shirt so the ink doesn't run off each shirt basically. So you have to spend a bit of time to make a good quality product.

He sells them through his website, and keeps people updated about his new designs on Facebook and Instagram. His t-shirts and hats became so popular they're now even being stocked in a shop. So far he's made 9 different designs, and he sells about 30 hats and shirts a week.

But designing these t-shirts was the easy part. Learning how to run a business, on the other hand, that was kinda hard.

LOKI: I spent a fair bit of time looking through Google and just You Tube videos to find the knowledge I needed to start it. It took probably two months, so it wasn't the easiest process to do. I had to find contacts so I could get designers to design for me. I had to work out how to set up social media accounts and properly manage them so it was professional. I had to learn how to make a website so I could sell my product.

He also had to be super organised, so he could balance his business with school work.

LOKI: I have a really easy website that I can process my orders. Nowadays you can get plenty of apps that help you manage things, and school work. I have a diary that I can use to write down things. I also use the calendar on my computer which helps me organise everything I'm doing.

So if this is something you'd like to do, what are Loki's tips?

LOKI: My advice is to be original, have a good quality product, make sure you learn the ins and outs of running businesses, and basically go your hardest.

So if you want to start your own business, there's no better time than now to get rolling. Closer

And that's it from us! We'll be back next week with all the stuff you need to know. But if you miss us too much, just hit our website in between. Bye for now!