BtN: Episode 18 Transcript 28/06/11

Transcription

1 BtN: Episode 18 Transcript 28/06/11 On this week's Behind the News. The rule change which makes it easier for kids to earn money after school. The plague which is proving to be a menace for farmers. And we check out why a group of Aussies are teaching swim-safety overseas. Hi I'm Nathan Bazley. Welcome to Behind the News. Also on the show today we meet a table tennis star who's bouncing back after some hard times. Before all that, let's get a wrap-up of some of the main news stories this week. Here's Matt with the Wire. The Wire Secret video of starving homeless children has been smuggled out of North Korea showing the horrible conditions for some kids living in the secretive country. The video shows young children caked in dirt and mud begging for scraps to survive. The dictator who runs North Korea doesn't allow news crews to film conditions in the country freely. The journalist who filmed this footage had to go undercover to get it and risked punishment smuggling it out. ***** The number of Aussies who think Climate Change is a serious problem is falling according to a new opinion poll. The annual poll asked 1,000 people their thoughts on the subject and the results showed only 41 per cent thought action was necessary. Five years ago that figure was 68 per cent. Three quarters of Aussies also said the government has not done a good job of addressing the issue. ****** And finally It's not an honour most would like their pets to win but Yoda the Chinese-crested cross Chihuahua has been named the World's Ugliest Dog. The 14 year old canine beat almost 50 other beauty challenged dogs to the honour which included a one thousand dollar cheque and a trophy much bigger and more beautiful than the winning dog. ****** 1

2 It was a devious heist but the mystery of the missing Bananas in Pyjamas has been solved after the famous fruit were stolen last Sunday. Two people gained entry to the ABC Studios in Adelaide and stole the yellow mascots sparking a state wide banana hunt. But security footage helped catch the culprits unawares and the iconic sleepwear models were returned to their rightful home. Presenter: Glad to see the bananas back safe and well. Kids Work Reporter: Natasha Thiele INTRO: In a few years time some of you might be going out to look for a job. It's a way of earning money while you're still at school but there's been an important change to working hours for kids. Tash looks at the new rules and how they might affect you. To earn a bit of pocket money at home, you've probably done a few things like this. It might only take you an hour to get it done and you get to keep the cash you earned from your parents! But outside of your home, employment is a little different. Young people play a big part in Australia's workforce. Thousands of teenagers under the age of 18 work a variety of jobs from fast food to retail. They find time after school, on weekends or during the school holidays and in most parts of Australia, you can start working around 15. But in the past, many kids were expected to work even younger and in some dangerous places like mines. Even around 50 years ago, people like your grandparents were allowed to quit after primary school and take up a full-time job instead. But rules have changed since then to protect kids and make sure their education comes first. Students often earn somewhere between 8 and 10 dollars an hour and for some employers, that's still a lot cheaper than paying adults. They aren't allowed to do dangerous work anymore, which is why fast food and retail are popular jobs with kids. There is also a maximum amount of hours kids are allowed to work per week and those hours aren't allowed to interfere with class times. And finally, most kids can't be called into work for less than three hours at a time, but that's about to change for kids working in retail. Now, a minimum shift will be reduced to 90 minutes, all to suit school kids better. The problem was, with school finishing at around 3:30, the old three-hour shifts meant you wouldn't finish work until 6:30. Of course, most shops usually close 2

3 around 5, so that's no good for school kids. But the minimum shift has now been wound back to 90 minutes, meaning kids stand a better chance of earning some pocket money after school. All this comes with restrictions. Only school kids can work the short shifts, they have to be between 3 in the afternoon and 6:30 at night on a school day and only if their parent or guardian agrees. Business groups say it'll give kids the chance of valuable work experience and it'll be good for shops. But unions reckon adults will end up losing out, because it's cheaper for employers to hire younger people. And they're worried a lot of the money kids earn in that 90 minutes, will only pay for their transport to and from work. So what do you reckon about working after school? BOY 1: I think it's good because you get some advantages for when you're older so that you get more knowledge about what you sort of need to do during work times. GIRL 1: Especially being shorter, so that you get more time to do homework so you're not behind on work for school. GIRL 2: I think it would be better if it was for longer, like if you just worked for more than an hour and a half, then you actually achieve a lot more. GIRL 3: I think students should be like, work hard on their homework maybe, so work probably may distract it. BOY 2: It's convenient to go straight from school, after school, to go to a part-time job and like earn some money. Online Poll OK let's make that our poll this week. The question is: Is it a good idea for kids to go to work after school? To vote just head to our website. And in last week's poll we asked you if you thought underwater mining was a good idea. 34 per cent thought it was a good idea but a majority 66 per cent said it wasn t a good idea. Thanks for voting. Financial year Reporter: Nathan Bazley INTRO: Once you start working a lot like you saw in our last story this time of year will become pretty important to you as it would be for your parents. Why? Well it's 3

4 nearly the end of the year. You might be thinking I'm about six months off but there's a very important year ending on the 30th of June. Let's find out what it is. NATHAN BAZLEY, REPORTER: This is what we do to celebrate the end of the calendar year. And this is what we do to celebrate the end of the financial year. As you can see, these two different 'ends' of year' are celebrated in very different ways. And it's not hard to work out which one people most look forward to. But the financial year is arguably the most important, to businesses, your parents, even you if you earn a decent amount of cash. Let's find out why. You probably won't find the end of the financial year on many calendars, but it starts on July the 1st and ends on June the 30th each year. So it's exactly the same length as a normal year, it just starts and ends at a different time. And it's at this time that people everywhere that earn a wage have to file a tax return. Taxes are how the government funds all the things it has to pay for, like hospitals, schools, roads and emergency services. They get the money by taking a percentage of your wage every time you're paid. NATHAN: But you can get some of that money back by filling in a tax return. Tax returns are due anytime after the end of the financial year on the 30th of June. Tax payers fill them in by listing anything they bought that is related to their job, like books, laptops or safety equipment. They also list any donations they made to charity. These are called deductions and if you have enough, the government gives you back some of your tax money. But if they work out that you didn't pay enough tax, then you'll owe the government more. To give you an idea, someone earning around $50,000 a year might expect to pay around 8 and a half thousand dollars in tax on that income. You'll also notice something else happening around this time of year - end of financial year sales, which some businesses have started calling EOFYS for short. They can also be called stock take sales as well. Businesses have to do tax statements as well and part of this is counting every single piece of stock they have called stock take. Sales help them get rid of old stock, meaning they have less to count up. Then from those figures they can work out how much money they have made for the year and therefore how much tax the business has to pay as well! NATHAN: All of this flurry of financial activity for both taxpayers and business owners, proves exactly why we have a financial year that's different to our calendar year. Can you imagine having to do stock take at your shop and fill in your tax return, 4

5 all in the middle of Christmas and holiday celebrations! It'd be a bit of a dampener on the party! But with so many sales happening at this time of year, shop-a-holics would probably find the end of the financial year, just as exciting as any new year! Mouse Plague INTRO: Over the past year farmers have had their fair share of hassles. There's been drought, floods and even locusts that have all played a part in wiping out crops leaving farmers out of pocket but now there's a different threat. What is it? Kirsty fills us in. KIRSTY BENNETT, REPORTER: In Australia a plague is spreading. It's scuttling across paddocks and even into people's homes. Along the way it's eating everything in its path. This creature tormenting Aussie farmers is a mouse. But this little guy is no little problem in fact there are millions of them! From Queensland to South Australia, mice are gobbling up crops as quickly as they're planted. It's terrible news for farmers who've already had to battle drought, floods and even locusts! SIMON CRAIG, AGRONOMIST: There are stories that the mice numbers are so bad and they're running across the road and you have to slow down to sixty k's an hour because the car is actually skidding. KIRSTY: It's not only their appetite that's causing problems. This farmer lost 200 of his rabbits to a disease that he says came from mice. BRIAN MACFARLANE, FARMER: When you'd walk in here at night, it'd just be a moving mass of just thousands of mice. So why are mice storming paddocks in such big numbers? The weather has a lot to do with it. Parts of Australia have had a wet winter followed by a wet summer and all that means new growth and a new food source for hungry mice. And in those conditions they're able to breed in big numbers. KIRSTY: Get this. This one little mouse can have about 6 babies every 19 days. Those babies can also have babies when they're only 6 weeks old! So you can see how quickly this whole room can fill up with mice! So if they breed so quickly how can farmers keep them under control, and eventually get rid of them? 5

6 Inside these barrels is one solution to the mouse plague. This is poisoned wheat grain that gets scattered across farmer's crops. The mice will eat the poisoned grain then go back to their holes and die. But the problem is that the demand is so big some suppliers have completely run out! REG PACKER, SWAN HILL CHEMICALS: We are waiting probably up to eight weeks from when we ordered. KIRSTY: The bait can be really expensive for farmers. It can cost tens of thousands of dollars to buy enough to cover their land. Some farmers want to save some money by making their own poison. But it's against the law. That's because there's no guarantee that homemade poison would be safe. It could be harmful to native animals and spraying it on food crops could be dangerous for humans too. In the meantime farmers will have to make a decision on whether to replant their crops or leave the mice to feast. It's thought with winter coming soon some of the mice might die off as it becomes harder to get food. But that's too late for the farmers who've already lost lots of money fighting an almost unwinnable game against the mouse. Presenter: OK, time for the first quiz of the show. Quiz 1 What is a female mouse commonly known as? Doe Jennet Minnie Answer: Doe A male mouse is called a buck. Swim Safe Reporter: Natasha Thiele INTRO: Now when you think about it Australia is a massive country but the vast majority of people are crammed into towns and cities around the coast. So it means 6

7 that many of us have grown up having to learn how to be safe around water. And that knowledge is proving to be valuable to people living in other countries as Tash reports. NATASHA THIELE, REPORTER: For years, Aussies have known that when it comes to playing around water, safety should always come first. From an early age, many kids are taught to swim as an important part of growing up. When we hit the beach, we're told to stay between the flags and if we get into trouble there are people trained to help us out. Even at home, there are safety rules to make sure pools are properly fenced off. We sometimes take all this stuff for granted, but it doesn't happen everywhere. And that's why Australia is taking its safety message to Asia. Some researchers have estimated that every year in Asia, as many as 300,000 kids die from drowning. A lot of it has to do with lifestyle. In some countries it's normal to play in areas like dangerous fish ponds and dams. Here in Bangladesh, life usually revolves around water, but many kids are unaware of basic water safety and even little kids can be left to play around water without an adult nearby. JUSTIN SCARR, ROYAL LIFE SAVING AUSTRALIA: The children are often left unsupervised or worse, they're supervised by the older sibling, so you might see across rural villages that the supervision of a two year old is left to a 5 year old or a six year old and that's unfortunately a recipe for disaster. So Bangladesh is looking to Australia for help and the organisation, Royal Life Saving Australia. It's been working with communities for more than 100 years, trying to reduce drowning deaths by teaching water safety and life saving techniques. For the past 5 years, they've been doing that in Bangladesh. 140,000 kids between the ages of 4 and 10 have been through the program. They take part in classes like this at local ponds, where they learn how to swim. They also learn to raise their hand if they're in trouble and how to save someone who's drowning using a bamboo pole. Locals are taught how to resuscitate someone who has drowned. And to stop the problem of little kids wandering around unsupervised, these wooden pens have been brought in for babies and crèche have been set up for pre-schoolers, to give them somewhere to go when their parents are at work. For a child to graduate from the course, they need to prove they can tread water for 90 seconds and swim without any help in open water for at least 25 metres. Organisers say the program is working and is showing some amazing results. They say drowning has been cut by more than 80 percent in some communities in Bangladesh. And now, some other Asian countries have shown an interest in the 7

8 Australian program. So if they get involved, hundreds of thousands of more young lives could be saved! Presenter: Now let's catch up with some of this week's biggest sports stories in the Score. The Score Wimbledon's been the big sports story this week. Aussie teenager Bernard Tomickj is going well. He's stunned fifth seed Robin Soderling defeating the much higher ranked player in straight sets to move into the round of 16. The 18-year-old won 6-1, 6-4, 7-5 against Soderling who was suffering from a stomach upset. The victory carries Tomic higher than he's ever been in his career it's likely to push the current world No.158 into the top 100 rankings. *************** Kids sport is usually all based on age divisions but in a sport like rugby league where size matters, age doesn't always work. Both these boys are 12 years old but one weighs 43 kilos and the other 75! For the smaller guys on the field it can be pretty dangerous. "Bit scared." But for Ben, it's a huge advantage. It can take half a team to slow him down. "HOLD!" BEN: "In a tackle. Get them on the ground. I can hurt them by pushing them on the ground." Medical experts say more smaller players are are being admitted to hospital with injuries. So they're teaming up with the New South Wales rugby league to measure the height and weight of the players and see if size does matter when it comes to the health of young players. All right, we're going to stay with sport and have a story about table tennis next but to get us in the mood let's a have another quiz. Quiz 2 8

9 The question is: Table tennis is also called ping-pong, but what was its other early name? Wiff-Waff Hit-Bit Paddle-Pop Answer: Wiff-Waff King Pong Reporter: Kirsty Bennett INTRO: The game started in England in the 1880s. At first, they used a golf ball and a row of books instead of a net. Well the sport's come a long way since the days of Wiff-Waff. It's not only in the Olympics it's at the Paralympics too. And that's where our next teenage sports star is aiming but as Kirsty reports, he's had to overcome much more in his life than just a disability. KIRSTY BENNETT, REPORTER: This is probably the only version of ping pong where I might actually stand a chance of winning. But when I come up against the real Yasir Hussaini I just can't compete! KIRSTY: That hit my hand! One look at Yasir and you'd think he'd been playing table tennis all his life. But in fact he's only been training seriously in the sport for about a year! YASIR HUSSAINI, PARALYMPICS REPRESENTATIVE: In year seven it was in my PE class where I picked up my first bat before that I didn't know what the rules were or how to play. KIRSTY: Now his skills with the bat could take him to the top. Yasir's been selected to play in the Australian table tennis squad and has been tipped to one day bring home a gold in the Paralympics. It's an impressive start for the Year 12 student who has cerebral palsy a disability that affects the way his body moves. 9

10 YASIR HUSSAINI, TABLE TENNIS PLAYER: I think as I've got older I've accepted the fact that I am disabled and I need help at times but on the other hand it's really important that you don't let it come in the way. KIRSTY: But it's not only his disability that makes Yasir an inspiring role model - it's his past. When Yasir was 7 he and his family fled Afghanistan, which at the time was on the brink of war. His family was threatened and the Taliban even kidnapped one of his brothers. The family hasn't seen him since. But Yasir and his family pushed on with their plans to get out. They made their way to Indonesia and then got on a boat to Australia. YASIR HUSSAINI, TABLE TENNIS PLAYER: For me, it was an adventure really because as a 7 year old you get on a boat that's really dodgy and you've got really big waves hitting you boat at night and while you're sleeping you're just flopping around everywhere and I think I enjoyed it. It was for me but for the whole family it was a worry. KIRSTY: They were stopped by Australian authorities and spent the next two months in a Detention Centre before they were allowed to stay. 11 years on from that journey and Yasir's achievements keep on growing. The Year 12 student has been given leadership roles at his school and helps out other Afghan kids with their homework. JAMES LAWLER, BLACKFRIARS COLLEGE CAPTAIN: I admire Yasir's integrity. MOSHEN NAZARI, STUDENT: I just see him as my hero, as my leader. BRIAN TURNER, BLACKFRIARS PRINCIPAL: Yasir is one of our prefects, an outstanding student, he's so humble, his resilience, his strength of character, he's a role model for all of the kids at the school. KIRSTY: Despite showing enormous potential in his sport, Yasir isn't even thinking about trying to get into the 2012 games. DAVID LOWE, COACH: With those short one's you're just doing that. If they're short, still brush them up. KIRSTY: Instead he wants to keep training and have a crack at the games in And when that time comes, he can't wait to make his adopted country proud! Closer 10

11 And that's it for the show. You can jump onto our website if you want to get more info on any of our stories. You can send us your comments and don't forget to vote in this week's poll. I'll see you next time! 11