text:
package org.apache.ambari.infra.solr.commands;

import org.apache.ambari.infra.solr.AmbariSolrCloudClient;
import org.apache.ambari.infra.solr.AmbariSolrCloudClientException;
import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;

public abstract class AbstractRetryCommand<RESPONSE> {
  private static final Logger LOG = LoggerFactory.getLogger(AbstractRetryCommand.class);

  private final int interval;
  private final int maxRetries;

  public AbstractRetryCommand(int maxRetries, int interval) {
    this.maxRetries = maxRetries;
    this.interval = interval;
  }

  public abstract RESPONSE createAndProcessRequest(AmbariSolrCloudClient solrCloudClient) throws Exception;

  public RESPONSE run(AmbariSolrCloudClient solrCloudClient) throws Exception {
    return retry(0, solrCloudClient);
  }

  private RESPONSE retry(int tries, AmbariSolrCloudClient solrCloudClient) throws Exception {
    try {
      return createAndProcessRequest(solrCloudClient);
    } catch (Exception ex) {
      LOG.error(ex.getMessage(), ex);
      tries++;
      LOG.info("Command failed, tries again (tries: {})", tries);
      if (maxRetries == tries) {
        throw new AmbariSolrCloudClientException(String.format("Maximum retries exceeded: %d", tries), ex);
      } else {
        Thread.sleep(interval * 1000);
        return retry(tries, solrCloudClient);
      }
    }
  }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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When True Emotions Meet Fashion, You Get Sharmila's 'Almirah' Project
This is not a fashion piece. This is, in fact, the story of Sharmila's Almirah Project and the emotions of a woman.
The year is about to end, and like always, we all wonder – 'How so fast?'. These past few months have been liberating for few, but caged for many. Maybe, that's why the word of the year – Mental Health – appear to be the 2020 buzzword, to date. When the lockdown came knocking on our doors, many of us had a grave time adjusting to the new, and that spiked up a lot of emotions among us. For Sharmila Nair, a fashion artist from Kochi and the founder of Redlotus, it was no less. The lockdown made her feel trapped, and as an artist who loves to explore identities through her fashion label, it felt as though she didn't have the opportunity to grow and or even, feel inspired.
You May Also Like: 18 SHADES OF BLACK: RED LOTUS' REPRESENTATION OF DIVERSITY AMONG WOMEN
As she sat through the lockdown, looking at her sarees the world was yet to see, folded and placed in an organised manner in her Almirah, she thought of something that most of us were ignorant of. She thought of what women all around the world would be facing in these troubled times because she too was living through that experience. Depression, anxiety, burnout, burden, helplessness, fear, insecurity, you name it – Sharmila experienced this, so did other women.
She also thought of the concept of an Almirah, a gift that is given to the women of Kerala on their second day after the wedding. When you look at it afar, it's just a piece of metal or wood. But, when you look closer, you understand the relationship it holds in a woman's life. It's her own, and something she calls hers; her private property. Her invaluable possessions, her stories, her memories, her secrets lie within the confines of her Almirah. Sharmila saw this through the eyes of all the women who were feeling all sorts of emotions and understood her calling. Thus the Almirah Project was born.
The Almirah Project is an expression of emotions; a woman's myriad emotions. According to Sharmila, "This is a metaphorical way of looking at the condition of women in a patriarchal society." Sharmila tries to answer one question throughout this project – "Who is the real woman behind the Almirah?". We see that depicted beautifully in a manner that relates to a lot of women. Who would have known that something as simple as an Almirah would have many untold stories, and is considered a safe space for many women out there? In these troubled times, many women had to cut off from what they would call 'freedom' because they had to stay within the four walls of their homes, balancing home duties with their work. Elderly women who found solace outdoors felt trapped sitting at homes. Young women, who had dreams to achieve, are questioning their life choices because they are experiencing an existential crisis. The Almirah Project was able to portray all these bubbled up emotions in a fashional yet representative manner.
A post shared by Redlotus (@redlotus004) on Oct 21, 2020 at 6:34am PDT
Ramya Suvi, a trained Indian classical dancer and the main protagonist of the project, was asked to wear her emotions. She had to portray eight-strong emotions namely Happiness, Sensuousness, Thoughtful, Trapped, Sadness, Frustration, Anger, and Powerfulness, and she did it with such ease. The man behind the camera, Ratheesh Ravindran, had to bring Sharmila's concept to light, so he to play around with the colours of the sarees that were being depicted. Each saree was associated with an emotion, based on its colours. Satheesh Mohan served as the project assistant, Imnah Felix and Anzar Mohammed were responsible for the art direction and editing respectively, Caroline Geogre, Ansari Izmake, and Shireen Yasir looked after the styling, make-up, and hair independently.
The fashion-art installation highlighted the secrets, desires and hopes of women locked away in an 'Almirah'. If there's one thing you can take away from Sharmila Nair's Almirah Project, it's that stories weaved in fashion hold a lot more meaning, making it empowering for the person who wears it.
Almirah Project
fashion artists
kochin
Malayalam fashion industry
Sharmila Nair
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Q&A with Katey Duffey about the Tulsi Foundation
by Josh GrossPosted on July 19, 2018 July 26, 2018
Front-line staff in India learning about first aid with the help of the Tulsi Foundation. Image courtesy of Katey Duffey; © Tulsi Foundation.
In December of 2015, Katey Duffey became this site's first Q&A participant. Back then, she was studying snow leopards (Panthera uncia) in western Mongolia.
Now, however, Katey is a member of a new organization called the Tulsi Foundation. Tulsi's work is quite fascinating, and I have thus asked Katey to participate in a second Q&A about the Tulsi Foundation and her role within it.
In a few words, what does the Tulsi Foundation do?
The Tulsi Foundation trains frontline staff (i.e. rangers and conservationists) in trauma medicine to respond to emergencies associated with working in dangerous, remote locations. Tulsi provides advisory support for governmental and NGO agencies on healthcare of frontline staff, as well as using an evidence-based approach to measure and implement various healthcare needs.
What is your role within Tulsi, and how did your background prepare you for this position?
I am the Communications Director. My role is to help educate people about the work we do, and promote the importance of looking out for the health and safety of those who work in conservation as much as we help communities who live alongside conservation areas. If rangers and field researchers are not able to stay safe and well, then they can't do their jobs to help local communities and wildlife.
I enjoy engaging with the public and have years of experience in outreach and informal education programs. I also enjoy doing blogs or articles for a broader audience in order to maximize impact.
Katey working with the Tulsi Foundation. Image courtesy of Katey Duffey; © Tulsi Foundation.
How did you become involved with the Tulsi Foundation?
I met the director and founder, Dr. Chet Trivedy, on Twitter a couple years ago.
We started talking about the importance of working with a community for more effective conservation and agreed that there is a lack of information, resources, and aid for those researchers and rangers who are in the field. I already had training and experience as an Army Combat Lifesaver and continued interest in wilderness medicine – especially as applied to fieldwork.
The work that the Tulsi Foundation does is very different from other One Health initiatives and is the perfect opportunity to combine passions for conservation, human-wildlife conflict, expedition work, and wilderness medicine.
Dr. Chet Trivedy, towards the left of the photo in a blue shirt, helping to train front-line staff in India. Image courtesy of Katey Duffey; © Tulsi Foundation.
Tulsi's website mentions "One Health" several times. What is One Health?
One Health is an inclusive, multi-disciplinary field that involves the collaboration of professionals in ecology, veterinary medicine, and human health. It encompasses research and initiatives regarding emerging diseases, climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, and human safety.
The health of domestic animals, wildlife, and people are all interconnected.
The Tulsi Foundation recently surveyed over 1,100 rangers from 14 tiger reserves in India. What was this survey about?
The survey is a comprehensive assessment of health needs, including: trauma from various accidents, poachers and wildlife attacks, inquires about different illnesses, the experience and training regarding administering first aid, and locations of closest clinics.
What are some of the things Tulsi learned through the aforementioned survey?
Negative encounters with wildlife such as venomous snakes, sloth bears, and leopards are common. In addition, the majority of rangers had never had formal first aid training. The rest of the data is still being analyzed.
Front-line staff in India practicing first aid, under the direction of the Tulsi Foundation. Image courtesy of Katey Duffey; © Tulsi Foundation.
You recently traveled to India with Tulsi. What sort of work did you do there?
I helped conduct health checks on over 300 rangers within the Western Ghats, assisted with training rangers in first aid within several tiger reserves in central India, and entered data from the ranger health questionnaires.
I see that Tulsicon2018 is coming up in September. What is Tulsicon2018, and what sorts of activities are planned for it?
Tulsicon2018 is a unique, One Health-themed conference that will promote current issues in: the physical and mental health of those working in conservation, human-wildlife conflict, global health issues, and personal safety in remote environments.
The conference will feature free health checks, a free basic life support workshop, best-selling author Danni Rabaiotti with a book signing, and award-winning wildlife artist Judith Mackay. There will also be an abstract competition for a cash prize. Since the conference will be located at the London Wetland Centre, attendees will be able to tour the grounds and meet the resident otters. A vegan lunch will also be provided.
You can find out more regarding the Tulsi Foundation and information about registering for the conference at the website http://www.tulsifoundation.co.uk/.
Lastly, do you have any plans to resume your work with snow leopards?
Yes! I'm waiting on the next steps on my current pilot study for possible zoonoses (diseases that can jump between humans and animals) transmitted to snow leopards, and in the process of discussing options with a couple of colleagues for another One Health project within snow leopard communities.
Katey working with local people in Mongolia. Image © Katey Duffey.
Final Remarks
I would like to thank Katey for participating in a second Q&A for The Jaguar and its Allies, and for taking the time to talk about the much-needed Tulsi Foundation. Do not forget to check out Tulsi's website, and to learn more about Tulsicon2018!
Posted in Ally SpotlightTagged conference, conservation, Dr. Chet Trivedy, first aid, health, India, Katey Duffey, One Health, Q&A, safety, science, snow leopards, Tulsi Foundation, Tulsicon2018
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Terrific info, Josh and Katey. Have a thriving Thursday!
Thanks Teagan! You too!
Kelly MacKay says:
Thanks Kelly!
thepoemsaboutthegirl says:
Katey Duffey is doing an amazing job.
She certainly is!
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text:
'Misplaced bravado': SC pulls up Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, closes contempt case over sealing drive
An FIR also lodged against Tiwari by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation for allegedly breaking the seal of the premises in Gokalpuri area in north-east Delhi on September 16.
delhi Updated: Nov 22, 2018 14:21 IST
Bhadra Sinha
Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari shows victory sign after he was acquitted in a sealing case by the Supreme Court. (Burhaan Kinu/HT Photo)
Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari has been sharply rebuked by the Supreme Court for his much-publicised action of breaking into a house sealed by a court-mandated team in September. "It is a misplaced bravado including chest thumping and a misplaced political agenda," a bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur said in its order on a contempt case against the lawmaker.
The court, however, did not order any action against him. Instead, the judges said it is up to the BJP to take action against him.
But Justice Lokur's order letting him off the hook in this case was scathing in his observations. The court said it was extremely pained the way he took law into his own hands.
Manoj Tiwari had broken the lock of a house sealed by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation in northeast Delhi's Gokulpur. The property had been sealed for an illegal dairy that was operating from the premises. Tiwari had then justified breaking the seal, questioning why only one house was sealed by officials if there were 1,000 other houses.
At one point, the court had also told him to come up with a list of 1,000 unauthorised properties and offered to give him the power to seal them too.
Tiwari had claimed that he didn't mean to disrespect the court but was "forced to do symbolic affirmative protest action against the illegal sealing action done by officials."
Senior counsel Vikas Singh, appearing for the BJP leader, had claimed before the bench that "monitoring committee want to terrorise the people of Delhi. This is only for publicity".
The top court had earlier ordered restoration of its 2006 monitoring committee to identify and seal unauthorised structures in Delhi.
The monitoring committee, comprising K J Rao, former advisor to the Election Commissioner, Bhure Lal, chairman of Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority, and Major General (Retd) Som Jhingan, was set up on March 24, 2006, by the top court.
First Published: Nov 22, 2018 10:45 IST
Ranjan Gogoi
more from delhi


Is there a release date for the Connect Home router/hubs?
Being able to spread the mesh and WiFi together looks really useful for our home.
That model has been discontinued all together. The new generation is just called "Samsung Wi-Fi." and now includes plume technology.
But no word yet on when it might be released for the UK and it hasn't been zwave certified there yet.


text:
Join the Audience
Class, Cooling and Corruption
Broadcast Mon 18 Aug 2014 at 11:35am Monday 18 Aug 2014 at 11:35am Mon 18 Aug 2014 at 11:35am
Duration: 1 hour 2 minutes 20 seconds 1h 2m
*Correction: Mr Maurice Newman has written to the ABC to say Q&A's assertion that he claims "the world is actually cooling" is not correct. Mr Newman points out that in his recent public statements he does not claim that the earth is cooling, only that this is a possibility that scientists and policy makers should consider more seriously.
TONY JONES: Good evening. Welcome to Q&A. I'm Tony Jones. Answering your questions tonight: chair of Australian Super and board member of the Reserve Bank, Heather Ridout; Social justice advocate, CEO of Saint Vincent de Paul, Dr John Falzon; Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss; Labor Senate Leader Penny Wong; and the leader of the Palmer United Party, Clive Palmer. Please welcome our panel. All right. Q&A is simulcast on ABC News 24 and NewsRadio. You can join the Twitter conversation using the #qanda hashtag and, remember, if you have a live question, add @qanda to help us find it. Well, our first question tonight comes from Catherine Wallace.
BUDGET BURDEN FALLS ON POOR
CATHERINE WALLACE: Mr Hockey says he is so sorry for comment about poor Australians and their use of cars. He also stated that he is and has been concerned about the poor for a long time. If Mr Hockey is so genuinely concerned, why then does his budget place the harshest measures on the elderly and the poorest Australians while only one small temporary tax is being placed on the richest Australians?
TONY JONES: Warren Truss, that's for you?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, clearly, when we set about this budget we had made a commitment to the Australian people that we would set a new direction where Australia began to live within its means, where we sought to raise sufficient revenue to pay for the costs of running our country but, in addition, we wanted to make sure that our welfare, education, health programs could be sustainable into the future so what this budget has done has helped shore up an opportunity for us to ensure that there will be a continuation of aged pensions and other key programs, that there will still be increases associated to ensure that the cost of living issues can be appropriately addressed. We've allowed people who are on welfare, lower income earners, to be able to keep the compensation for the carbon tax even though the carbon tax itself has been abolished so there's a $550-per-family benefit right from the beginning. So there are significant measures there to help lower income people. And we know that the best thing that we can help to support those who are going to need assistance into the future, is to have a budget that, into the future, will be able to afford to pay for the sort of things that they're going to need, from their community and from their fellow citizen, to ensure their own wellbeing.
TONY JONES: Okay. Well, that question started with a reference to Joe Hockey saying sorry. Do you accept the fuel excise is more of a burden for poor people than for rich people?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, Joe has apologised for what he said.
TONY JONES: No, but what do you think?
WARREN TRUSS: He regrets it and, frankly, I think we should move on. The reality is that fuel excise is an additional cost. No one likes extra costs. This was...
TONY JONES: I'm Is it - is it - no, but I'm going to bring you to the question.
WARREN TRUSS: This was, however, a cost...
TONY JONES: Is it - is it more of a burden for poor people than rich people? Because that was the nub of what got Joe Hockey into trouble.
WARREN TRUSS: Well, those who are on lower incomes, the amount they might pay on excise might be a greater proportion of their income than somebody who's on a high income but the reality is that it depends on what travelling you do and because it's essentially a tax on distance. So, from our perspective, what we - what I think is also important is that this was money that was going to be put aside to build better roads and that's something that I think all Australians want and, let me say particularly, as someone who comes from regional Australia, there is a real determination to do what we can to build a better road system, give ourselves better infrastructure. We'll have to pay for it some way and fuel excise ensures that those who use the system pay for it.
PENNY WONG: And it falls harder on your constituents. That's the reality.
WARREN TRUSS: The reality is that country people want to see more roads and they want to see them built well and they want to make sure that they've got the capacity to travel on them. And they're far better off than they would have been had Labor been re-elected, because Labor was going to put a 7 cents a litre tax on transport fuel as a part of its carbon tax regime.
TONY JONES: All right. The question...
WARREN TRUSS: So this is a substantial advance.
TONY JONES: The question began...
WARREN TRUSS: A substantial improvement for those people...
WARREN TRUSS: ...who live in regional Australia than what Labor had on offer.
TONY JONES: The question was a broad question about the budget and whether it hit the poor harder than wealthy people. John Falzon?
JOHN FALZON: Thank you, Tony, for allowing me to answer this question and thank you, Catherine, for asking it and I'd like to, in fact, thank the Treasurer for inadvertently highlighting the fact that class is central to any national debate on inequality. Now let's put things in context; the unemployed have not seen an increase, in real terms, to their benefit since 1994. That's a long time. Successive Governments have neglected the need to lift the desperately low Newstart payment. However, I have to say, in all honesty, that after this budget, I have to say this Government seems to be making an art form out of cruelty to the unemployed. This budget has ripped the guts out of what remains of a fair and egalitarian Australia. Why? These measures won't help people into jobs but they will force people into poverty. You don't help someone into a job by making them poor, whether you're young, old, a person with a disability, a single mum, you're not going to be helped into a job by being put down. You don't build people up by putting them down. You certainly don't help young people into a job by forcing them to live on fresh air and sunshine for six months of every year, forcing them to rely on charities like mine. We'll try and be there for people but it isn't charity they should have to depend on, it's justice they should be able to count on and you certainly don't reduce the level of youth unemployment by increasing the level of youth incarceration, because that's what we're going to see. And as the OECD tells us, that well-known left-wing think-tank, you don't build a strong economy by increasing the level of inequality.
TONY JONES: Okay, let's hear what the rest of the panel think about the budget. Heather Ridout.
HEATHER RIDOUT: In my view, there was no way the Treasurer could sell that proposition on the basis of it being equitable because it's not. But, like, when you do a review of tax, you look at - you have equity as a principle but you may not apply it to every single instrument but you look at the package as a whole and try and make it equitable and that's really how you design these structures. I think what's happened with the budget is that there's a number of measures which have objectives which are out of sync with the central objective of the budget, which is to get the budget back on track, which we need to do and I think everybody agrees with that. So how do you put a - change the excise arrangements on fuel, which is a small amount of money in the age of entitlement, but pay a woman $50,000 to have a baby? How do you put a co-payment on, with the express purpose you think of fixing the deficit, but it goes into medical research? I think Stephen Covey in the great book, you know, 'The Seven Habits of Smart People' said always start with the end in mind and I think, with this budget, the end in mind has been clouded. It's been inconsistent but the central objective, which the Deputy Prime Minister has mentioned, we do need to have a medium term budget strategy. We do need these things and the fuel excise is economically virtuous. It is not a huge amount of money, but the rest of the system should have been there balancing it off and it wasn't and I think it's left the whole thing exposed and, frankly, the Labor Party - and Penny Wong can speak for herself - but I think they want to support this measure. They would have liked to have supported this measure. Now, the, you know, the Greens in their inimitable way stood out against it, which has created all sorts of problems and put the Labor Party between a rock and hard place. So, you know, I think that the budget strategy has been compromised through inconsistencies and not keeping to the central core project, which is balancing the budget.
TONY JONES: Penny Wong?
PENNY WONG: Well, I think what the question really elicits is the fundamental set of values at the core of the budget and that's good because budgets are about values and when I look at this budget, when Labor looks at this budget, what we see, in both the budget measures itself and in some of the arguments which have been used to support the budget by the - by the Government, we see values we don't share and I think many Australians - most Australian don't share. I mean, you look for fairness and, instead, you see injustice. You look for how opportunity is being enabled and instead you see privilege being entrenched. That's what this budget is about. That is the value set at the core of the budget and it is also an incoherent budget, as Heather said, because on the one hand pensioners are told you have to tighten your belts but we have a paid parental leave scheme which is exorbitant in terms of its generosity. So my view is that the reason we're still in August talking about this budget is because Australians do not accept the sort of assault on some of those fundamental planks of opportunity that we believe in, whether it's schools, university, whether it's Medicare and its universality, whether it's fairness to pensioners, people don't accept what the Government is imposing. Let's remember the context. People were told this wouldn't happen before the election. People were told no cuts to health, no cuts to education, no changes to the pension, no cuts to the ABC and no new taxes. Every single one of those promises has been broken and it's unsurprising the Government is having difficulty getting support either in the parliament but, more importantly, in the Australian community.
TONY JONES: Clive Palmer.
CLIVE PALMER: You know, this week we celebrated, in my part of the woods, $20 billion worth of exports from our nickel refinery in Townsville. I can say that I never could have done that except when I left school I was on the dole for four months. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I needed to get some direction in my life and I needed that help to help me. I was homeless, living by myself and I needed some direction. So that was very important in my life. What's wrong with this budget is it's just not fair. It's just not reasonable to people and all of Australia knows it. We've got to remember that our debt really is 12% of our GDP and the average debt in the OECD is 73% of GDP. We're the third-lowest debt country in the OECD and what the boffins go on about is the projections. Well, you know, we had the global financial crisis a few years ago. I've been in business for years. Everyone knows the economy changes. We have wars, we have a whole range of things every four or five years, but all of these people are worried about what happens in 20 or 30 years. You know, I had four women come to see me in my electorate office aged between 68 and 86 and they said that their husbands always voted Liberal, they'd always voted Liberal and they didn't vote for me. They'd served in the Second World War, their three husbands, who were deceased, the other one in Korea and they said that their pension is paid to the nursing home and they get $15 back for incidentals every week and every Friday the four of them pool their money together and they go down to Maroochydore cinema to see a movie, have a coffee and have a chocolate and come home but under the co-payment, they can't go to the movies anymore. I didn't get elected to parliament to tag off someone's coffee and chocolate from an old lady that mightn't be here in three or four years time. I got elected to look after the people that are here in Australia now, not people that might be here in 20 or 30 years time and I don't want to destroy the values of this country and I assure all Australians that we will stand as the last sentry at the gate. There will be no co-payment. There will be no changes to the education establishments in Australia. There will be no deregulation of universities. That's why people elected us and that's what we're going to do.
TONY JONES: Okay. What about Joe Hockey's fuel tax hike?
CLIVE PALMER: Well...
TONY JONES: You've just named a number of things. What about the fuel tax hike? That's where that started.
CLIVE PALMER: I don't want to upset Warren tonight too much but...
WARREN TRUSS: You already have.
PENNY WONG: Too late.
CLIVE PALMER: But the reality of it is is when we got rid of the carbon tax, part of the carbon tax was a rebate on diesel fuel. That's now being re-introduced as a change to excise so it's about mirrors. The Australian people don't want mirrors. They want the truth. So we won't vote for that or for the indexation. You'll see...
TONY JONES: So no matter what is said to you?
CLIVE PALMER: That's right, yeah.
TONY JONES: Because this is a period of intense negotiation. Are you determined to reject all of these things?
CLIVE PALMER: Well, on the things that I've just mentioned tonight, you can't negotiate because they're the very fabric of the nation that we live in. You can't sell out of Australia and you can't sell out on the Australian people.
TONY JONES: Okay, Warren Truss, do you want to have another crack at getting him to change his mind? Because there's a whole series of budget measures fundamental to the budget, which clearly are not going to get through PUP at least?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, the majority of the budget has already, of course, passed the parliament. We have supply and so the significant programs that the Government need to undertake, many of them have already passed. But there are a number of other measures that need to be resolved and we think that many of these are important for the future of our country. Some of them don't even take effect for quite a few years, so it's a matter of planning and putting things in place so that we can, in some instances, manage the growth in expenditure, rather than make any kind of cutbacks now.
TONY JONES: No, but just getting...
WARREN TRUSS: So we're...
TONY JONES: ...literally to what he just said there, do you accept that you're not going to get through that list of things fundamental to the budget, which Clive Palmer has just said aren't going to get through?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, the numbers are the numbers. The new Senators have only been in the parliament for two weeks. I think they're still learning and obviously, as they get the chance to be exposed to more of the ideas, learn more of the strategy that's involved, hopefully they'll be prepared to look constructively at issues. Now, Clive mentioned, for instance, that the alternative to a half a cent a litre increase in fuel excise is to get rid of the diesel fuel rebate scheme. Well, that would be absolutely catastrophic for regional Australia and something where we just utterly reject.
PENNY WONG: Oh, come on Warren. Come on Warren. This is the - this is what the Libs did to try and get your support for it.
WARREN TRUSS: Now, this would add to the cost of agriculture and the cost of moving goods to and from the country and it is simply not on the table from our perspective and so that's not somewhere where we're going to go. But, clearly, we've been negotiating in my own portfolio and in others with Senators whenever they're willing to talk us to and we'll continue to do that...
TONY JONES: Okay. All right. I'm...
WARREN TRUSS: ...to try and make sure that we've got an agenda for the future that keeps our economy sustainable and helps to ensure that we've got the resources to do the things we need to do as a nation not just now but also into the future.
TONY JONES: Okay. Let's go to our next question. It's on the budget as well. It's from Laurie Matthews.
LAURIE MATTHEWS: I'm the provider of accommodation services for homeless young people in Sydney. Many of the young people we work with will have their unemployment benefits cut to zero, their Youth Allowance cut to zero when they complete their employment training courses. How do we expect our community to survive when we disenfranchise the most vulnerable people in the community further? How do you expect young people to live next week when they have zero income?
TONY JONES: Heather Ridout, we'll start with you.
HEATHER RIDOUT: Well, I think you can't expect them to. It will be damaging for them on a long-term basis. It will be damaging to our community. I think these measures are ideological and far too harsh. I mean New Zealand has a one-month thing. Maybe there's a compromise that the Government and Opposition Parties can work out but this is unfair. My sister taught for many years up the Central Coast. She taught many kids that were homeless as it was. We have very high rates of youth unemployment, 25% in many areas. There aren't enough jobs for the kids. I do believe young people should try and be in training and get skills as much as they can and Government policy needs to support that but I think just creating perverse incentives isn't the way to do that.
TONY JONES: John Falzon.
JOHN FALZON: Thanks very much, Laurie, for your question. I don't believe that we are actually in the throes of a fiscal crisis but if we go down this path and embrace those kinds of measures that are, as Heather said, ideology dressed up as rationality, if we do that we will be staring down the barrel of a social crisis and if you want to know what that looks like, look at Ferguson in the United States now. Martin Luther King once said that a riot is, at bottom, the language of the unheard. What are we going to do by disenfranchising this group of young people, who are desperate to find work? We are going to create a group of very dispossessed, desperate, despondent people. We're going to create a group of people that, rather than being placed on the pathway to employment, they're going to be on the pathway to destitution and despair. If that's the kind of society we want then, fine, let's go with this. But if we actually want a society where people are given a fair opportunity to get into work, then the last thing we would be doing is plunging them into poverty and forcing them to choose between charity and crime. Now, let me just say this: the business community has said many a time that the unemployment benefit is so low that it is itself an obstacle to employment participation. If a low unemployment benefit is an obstacle to participation, what's no unemployment benefit?
TONY JONES: Warren Truss.
WARREN TRUSS: Well, John, you should then be very pleased with the items in the budget that actually provide positive incentives for people to work. For those people who - there are bonuses there for those people who get a job and keep it. There are subsidies for employers who take on an older person and put them into the workplace. We've got training programs, work for the dole programs designed to support people who have not been able to get their first job, to get the skills that will enable them to provide - to get a career and a start for themselves. Now, you said and others have said the best thing you can do for a person who's unemployed is to get them a job. That is certainly our philosophy. There are positions in Australia, there are work in areas like my own, where - where we cannot get Australians who are prepared to do these sorts of jobs, so we have to bring in people on 457 visas, comparatively unskilled work like fruit picking, like working in abattoirs, etc. Now, we have to bring people in from other parts of the world to do that sort of work. I would far prefer young Australians to be doing those jobs and taking the opportunities. I know it's not their dream job but we can't all start off with our dream job. Clive didn't start off with his dream job. He had to work his way to a stage where he's got more money than most of us.
CLIVE PALMER: Well, I was on benefits for four months.
WARREN TRUSS: And that's the kind of thing that we ought to be encouraging people to do.
TONY JONES: Okay, well, since you're talking directly to John Falzon, you can answer that briefly. Briefly.
JOHN FALZON: First of all, while someone is unemployed, there's absolutely no reason why they should be plunged below the poverty line. That's the first thing and there are a raft of measures in this budget that are going to make life a hell of a lot harder if you are unemployed. You're going to be plunged further below the poverty line. So I don't accept the argument that any of these measures are going to help people into jobs. Secondly, I'm tired of the moralising language that demonises young people particularly but many unemployed, blaming them as if they are the ones that need to change their behaviour in order to get a job. You know, this isn't about morality. This is about mathematics and the mathematics are very simple. There are around 150,000 job vacancies in Australia and about 1.5 million unemployed plus underemployed people looking for a job. Do the maths. Forget about the morality. I'm not very good at either, by the way.
TONY JONES: I'm just going to go back to our questioner, because he has his hand up. Go ahead.
LAURIE MATTHEWS: Mr Truss, I think it's about how are you going to survive next week when you have zero income? What are you going to do?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, clearly, we have to have a range of programs to support people through the periods when they're not able to find work. I accept that there are - that there are some people who have been unable to find a job, who are trying very hard and those are the kinds of people we want to support through our work for the dole program and others.
TONY JONES: Warren Truss, can I just interrupt just for a moment because is the plan, here's one of the elements that some people argued was too tough, the young unemployed having to apply for 40 jobs - is it a week, a month?
JOHN FALZON: Month.
HEATHER RIDOUT: A month.
TONY JONES: Forty jobs a month. No, how can you actually do that plus everything else you need to do to train and so on?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, it's always been acknowledged that that will not be practical in some instances. If you're the only employer in a little country town...
TONY JONES: But is that going to be...
WARREN TRUSS: If you're the only employer in a little country town...
TONY JONES: But is it going to be a rule?
WARREN TRUSS: ...and everybody's turning up and - 40 times in the month to ask for the same job, well, clearly that's not going to work. So there isn't...
TONY JONES: So but is that going to be a rule or is that not going to be a rule?
WARREN TRUSS: The intention is that there be an element of flexibility within these sorts of programs. That's been made absolutely clear in relation to these sorts of tests. What we want to do is to make sure that people genuinely seek to obtain jobs where they're available, that we don't have situations where we've got jobs where we've got to bring people in from overseas because Australians don't want to do the work.
TONY JONES: Very briefly thought, very briefly, the 40 - the 40 applications per month, has that been shelved?
WARREN TRUSS: No. No, but what we've said is that there will be flexibility surrounding it.
PENNY WONG: What's the flexibility in having people have no income? I mean there's - you don't get anything. I don't see what flexibility there is.
WARREN TRUSS: Well, the flexibility was about the 40 job application requests and in circumstances where that's not practical. That's the question that was asked of me and that's what I - that's what I responded to.
PENNY WONG: Look, you know, I've been on this program before where some of Labor's mutual obligation has been criticised and John's criticised some of our approaches in Government. Fair enough. You know, I'm not opposed to mutual obligation. I am opposed to saying to people, we want you to live on charity. That's what we as the Government of Australia want you to do. We're going to make you live on charity.
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I hope then that you support our measures that provide incentives for employers to take on people.
TONY JONES: Okay.
PENNY WONG: You know what I love?
WARREN TRUSS: And also that you'll support our programs that reward people who find a job and keep it...
TONY JONES: Can I just say - can I just say...
PENNY WONG: No. No. I have been asked something. I've asked something. So this Government tells Australians a whole range of things before the election, brings down a budget which is contrary to what they said and which is fundamentally unfair and then demands that the Labor Party roll over and support the budget. Well, we're not going to.
WARREN TRUSS: Well, you're not even supporting your own savings measures.
PENNY WONG: You know, we're not going to.
CLIVE PALMER: Can I say something?
TONY JONES: I am going to say you can...
WARREN TRUSS: Labor is not even supporting its own savings measures that they introduced when they were in Government.
TONY JONES: All right. All right. Warren - Warren...
WARREN TRUSS: They're voting against them now when it comes before the Senate.
TONY JONES: Let's just - let's just hear from Clive Palmer because, once again, he might be in a position to stop some of these measures.
PENNY WONG: That's right.
CLIVE PALMER: Well, I think so. But what we need in our society is more love and compassion. When you're down and out - when you're down and out - when you're down and out you need self-respect.
PENNY WONG: That's true.
CLIVE PALMER: You need respect from other people to give you confidence. This is not about building people's self-respect and independence. This is about destroying their character and the feeling of worthlessness. This a policy designed to increase our crime rate or to increase youth suicide. That's the reality of it. You can go to the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, like I have. You can go to Latrobe Valley in Victoria, western suburbs of Melbourne and Tasmania and there are hundreds of thousands of young people that haven't got jobs, haven't got the ability to find employment, no matter how good they are, and are going to be left homeless with a stark choice of charity, a loss of self-respect, a loss of confidence or suicide. That's not the society that I'm going to live in and while I'm an Australian, while I'm in parliament and while our Senators are in parliament they won't let that happen.
TONY JONES: Okay. Just got a few people with their hands up. We'll quickly go around for a couple of comments. That gentleman there and the young lady behind him. Go ahead, sir? Yes.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'd like to know if the Government wants to get back into surplus, why don't they tax the big banks instead of taxing working people and the pensioners?
TONY JONES: Okay, we'll take that as a comment. The lady just behind you, go ahead.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Just in regards to work for the dole, it's a - you know, it is a good process to get youth and, you know, getting them back into the workforce but how is the $20-a-fortnight payment that you get sufficient enough to assist with travelling for an hour and a half, even if it is on the train service or whatever? It's not enough for young people to be able to survive, the additional $20, considering their rent is generally the entire youth payment, even if they are on the full one. Their rent is generally more than that and so we're putting pressure on people like Saint Vinnie's to assist the youth and there's just too many of them.
TONY JONES: Okay, let's go to Warren Truss. Now, you're hearing this. Are the measures that have been proposed so far too harsh?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, the work for the dole program is not intended to be a permanent lifestyle. It's meant to be a training program to encourage people into - into other employment where, presumably, the pay will be a lot better. If we have a stronger economy that creates more jobs. It's important that we support industries in Australia that have got the capacity to create these extra jobs in places where there is growth and expansion. Let's have people encouraged to move to those areas where there jobs - where there are jobs and there's incentives in our programs to enable people to do that. So we don't see work for the dole as something that's permanent but we see it as an opportunity for people to gain work skills and to transition to something that will be more fulfilling (indistinct)...
TONY JONES: Okay. We've got another questioner up the back there. Go ahead. That's you, yes.
Q3 FROM THE FLOOR
DEAN SHACHAR: Clive, as recently as probably mid 2012, you expressed such concern with the budget, you said it was in such dire straits that you wanted to run against the then Treasurer, the architect of the current crisis, for the Liberal Party, in his own seat of Lily. How then can you say, two and a half years later, to the Australian people, how can you justify rejecting every single measure they've tried to take to put the budget back into surplus? Is this not just populist-driven hypocrisy?
CLIVE PALMER: No, it's not. What you've got to understand is this is not a growth budget. If we look at what President Obama's done, it's as bad as Wayne Swan's budget because what President Obama has down in the United States, for example, in stimulating the economy had created jobs, it's created growth and economic strategy. You have a look at the austerity measures that have been taking place in Europe and Greece and places like that, that's what this Government is following. It doesn't create domestic demand. It doesn't create more surplus in the economy. So both of those - the current Government and last Government failed to grasp the challenge of enterprise to make us have growth and more jobs and more exports and that's what we need to be looking at. If we get rid of the carbon tax, we get rid of the mining tax, fine, what have we got for the economy to go forward? And that's why these budgets are totally unacceptable. They don't create growth and that's what we should be doing.
TONY JONES: All right, Clive, the questioner has got his hand back up. Go ahead.
CLIVE PALMER: Yeah.
DEAN SHACHAR: I'm just curious as to what's changed since you were a Liberal Party member and you wanted to run against the then Treasurer, the architect of this current crisis. Why was it such a budget crisis then?
CLIVE PALMER: Well, what's changed is...
DEAN SHACHAR: What's changed? You're in a position now with the balance of power to actually do something for the country.
CLIVE PALMER: Yes, well, what's...
DEAN SHACHAR: ...to actually get the budget on track and push forward with it. What's changed?
CLIVE PALMER: Yep. What's changed is their policy. Before the election they said they wouldn't do these things. They had a different policy and that's what we were supporting. I'm consistent. They're the ones that have changed and I'm staying where I was.
TONY JONES: Okay, let's go to another question. It's from Anh Pham.
BUDGET - ALTERNATIVE CUTS?
ANH PHAM: Given the stalling of the budget, what suggestions do you have to or alternatives do you have to ensure the deficit's reduced while still upholding social equality?
TONY JONES: Penny Wong.
PENNY WONG: Well, can I make the first point, Warren was actually - he said something I agreed with, which is that most of the budget has been passed, the core of the budget's been passed, the appropriations bills and a number of savings measures Labor has indicated support for. Obviously, the additional levy on high income earnings, the means testing in relation to Family Tax Benefit and a range of other measures.
TONY JONES: But what is the budget hole that's still left? We're talking tens of billions of dollars.
PENNY WONG: And what I'd say to you is that how we approach these decisions I think can be indicated from the decisions we made in Government. We did do some things which were not popular. We did do some difficult things in order to bring the budget back to surplus. We means tested family tax benefits. We means tested the private health insurance rebate, something which was vehemently opposed by the Opposition. We abolished the baby bonus which, I think, was likened to the one child policy by the current Treasurer. So I think our values are really demonstrated by the way we tried to approach those budgets, which were hard decisions. A recognition that you did have to deal with what was then particularly a revenue problem, what was happening to revenues, given the global financial crisis, but you don't fix the budget on the backs of the poorest people in Australia.
TONY JONES: So that begs the question, it's a question the Prime Minister has asked a number of times of Labor, what would you do to bring the budget back into surplus quickly?
PENNY WONG: Well, we are not in Government and what we will do - what we will do before the next election is make very clear to Australians how we would handle this. What we are - what we are doing as the Opposition is looking at measures which are presented to us and making an assessment about whether we believe they're appropriate and for the reasons I've outlined, a great many of them aren't. Where and how is it a good thing for the nation or for the budget to impose a co-payment on a visit to a GP for all Australians and to put that money to research fund? It doesn't help the budget bottom line. I think Heather made this point, and it imposes at a part of the health system which would be regarded generally as pretty efficient, a cost which can only act as a disincentive for people to access the health care they need. I don't think that's good policy, economically or socially.
TONY JONES: Yep, Clive Palmer, what alternatives would you - where would you cut? Where would you get the budget back into surplus?
CLIVE PALMER: Well, let me say there are...
TONY JONES: Since you obviously consider you're in a position to dictate a lot of policy at the moment.
CLIVE PALMER: Well, I don't think that's so but let me just say that there's only two countries in the OECD that have a balanced budget. That's Uzbekistan and Equatorial Guinea. Now, I don't know if we're trying to get there, to Equatorial Guinea or to Uzbekistan. I mean that may be a laudable thing to do.
HEATHER RIDOUT: Canada's pretty close.
CLIVE PALMER: But, of course, you know, the United States has only had a balanced budget for 12 years in the last 50 and it's the powerhouse of the world's economy. This whole debate is not about balancing the budget. That's not the most important thing. It's about growth, it's about revenue. It's about a money supply and increasing demand for our citizens and more enterprise. These issues, politician don't even talk about. That's how the economies run in the world. That's what really happens and that's what we need to do. Now, we...
TONY JONES: Now, do you care - so do you care at all about the extent of the deficit?
CLIVE PALMER: It's not the most important thing, as I said. We're the third-lowest deficit. We're the third lowest debt in the OECD. We're doing pretty good on that so don't get the wrong impression. I've already put a couple of proposals in my discussions with the Treasurer on what can be done for the economy and growth and he's been good enough to have them costed by the budget office and we're negotiating things like that that we can do some positive things.
TONY JONES: Are you able to tell us what they are?
CLIVE PALMER: I don't want to betray his confidences but we'll wait and see the outcome of that. So we are making positive suggestions and the Government is being reasonably responsive.
TONY JONES: Heather Ridout, I'll just bring you in here because it was said by Andrew Robb, I think, in the past 24 hours that the budget situation is putting Australia at sovereign risk. Very serious suggestion. Do you agree with it?
HEATHER RIDOUT: Well, look, I haven't read all of Andrew's remarks but I think it was also in the context of overseas investment coming here. The US looking at us with a scant eye. I mean I've just been...
TONY JONES: Well, sovereign risk is where no one wants to invest here because they think the place is going to rack and ruin.
HEATHER RIDOUT: Well, I mean, we are getting lots of investment. We are getting - we are getting lots of investment and I don't think the US political situation or economic situation is anything to get too excited about, compared to Australia, particularly the political situation. But, you know, I think we do have a medium-term budget problem. We certainly do have one. We've got an aging population, we have a health care system where the marginal cost is rising and not falling, we've got, you know, more older people than younger people coming through the system. We do need to have an approach to it and the business community is very strong about this and the business community supports large parts of the budget but we just have to set out a medium-term strategy to get there and it has to take account of all the impacts along the way and I think that's what people are looking for.
TONY JONES: Warren Truss. All right, Warren Truss, there doesn't seem to be a sense that there is a budget, on this panel at least, including from a former business lobbyist and member of the Reserve Bank, obviously from the other panellists. Are you worried that the measures you've tried to put in place are actually doomed and you're going to have to think of something completely different, like a mini budget?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, it does concern me that Clive and others are saying that the debt doesn't matter.
HEATHER RIDOUT: I didn't say that.
WARREN TRUSS: That there are other people who've got a worse debt than us so, therefore, we shouldn't worry about it. Never forget we are paying over $1 billion every month on the interest on this debt. Now, if we had that extra $1 billion we could give you the extra homeless accommodation that you want. We could be doing a whole lot more things to create jobs. We could be building more roads and if the debt trajectory that's in - that was in - that we inherited when we came to office was allowed to rise to its $667 billion peak, that would mean we'd be paying $3 billion every month on interest.
WARREN TRUSS: That does matter. That does matter. That is hurting you now. It means you can't have a lot of the things you want now. It means that future generations also will not be able to have the things that they want...
TONY JONES: So in order...
WARREN TRUSS: ...because so much is going to have to be paid in interest.
TONY JONES: So let me - let me just bring you quickly very briefly to the question that I just asked. Will you be forced into a mini budget because the measures you've proposed so far to save money are not going to get through.
WARREN TRUSS: Well, what we have - what we have done is already get a significant proportion of the budget through the parliament. Some of the other measures, as I mentioned to you, don't even take effect for quite some time.
TONY JONES: All right. So you're saying it's actually - it's not a priority anymore?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, it's clearly a priority for us to get the reform agenda through the parliament if we can because the sooner we make these reforms the sooner we can start turning the budget around and getting us in a more healthy situation but some of these things, there is time to talk, there is a willingness to talk but what we do need to have is a solid commitment to reducing the debt so that we don't have to pay interest, which is essentially wasted money - wasted money that we can't spend on the things that you want now.
PENNY WONG: Let's be clear about...
TONY JONES: Sorry, no, I'll just hear from John Falzon it trying to get in and he hasn't had a chance.
JOHN FALZON: I just have to come in here. To say that we need to punish the homeless in order to be able to provide homelessness services into the future just beggars belief. I refuse to accept - I refuse to accept that it is the poorest in our community who should be having to bear the biggest burden in having to fix this deficit. That is just not on.
TONY JONES: So the question was about solutions. Do you have any?
JOHN FALZON: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely, yes. First of all, we need to look at ways of broadening our revenue base. We have a suite of recommendations from the Henry Review. I'm not going to go into them in detail now but I'm very happy to but I'm sure you won't let me.
TONY JONES: Well, briefly, raise the GST. That's one. Raise it. Broaden the base.
JOHN FALZON: Well, that's not...
HEATHER RIDOUT: That wasn't a recommendation of the Henry Review.
JOHN FALZON: No, and that isn't what I was thinking of either.
TONY JONES: Though Henry Review wasn't allowed to look at that but...
HEATHER RIDOUT: Well, we did (indistinct)...
TONY JONES: ...the next tax review will.
JOHN FALZON: If you really wanted to look at savings, well, we could certainly spend a lot less on our detention system for these poor people that are seeking asylum in our country. We're spending huge amounts of money there. We're also spending an absolute wasteful amount on compulsory income management telling people in poverty how to spend their meagre amount of money and we're spending money to do that, to control their lives, to humiliate and disempowered them. So I completely reject the idea that we need to ramp up inequality in order to fix this deficit. You know, this is based on this myth, this fiction, of the trickle down. You know, if we're patient enough the wealth will trickle down, if we get the budget back into black. Well, I'm still waiting for the wealth to trickle down. I can't hear the wealth trickling down. What I can hear is the sound of the excluded still waiting.
CLIVE PALMER: Yeah, listen, Tony...
TONY JONES: You have to be very brief.
CLIVE PALMER: (Indistinct) We can - we can scrap paid parental leave. That will give us $20 billion.
PENNY WONG: Yeah, that's right. That's what I was going to say.
CLIVE PALMER: We can change the NBN.
WARREN TRUSS: It doesn't.
CLIVE PALMER: I know that Warren's a fan of Stephen Conroy. We can change the NBN, take 7 billion, hit the blind spot, save another 30 billion. We can buy submarines overseas that work, instead of build ones here that don't, save another $20 billion. We can save 2.5 billion on our direct action scheme, which we don't have at the moment. Now, all of that is more money than they've got in the budget. If they're running a bloody business, why don't they do it?
TONY JONES: All right. With that back of the envelope solution, we could talk about the budget all night but we do have some other issues to discuss. Our next question comes from Neema Zahedi.
CLIMATE: MAURICE NEWMAN
NEEMA ZAHEDI: Thank you, Tony. I would like to direct my question to Penny Wong. As the former Minister for climate change, what are your thoughts on Maurice Newman recently launching into an embarrassing attack on climate science, this time stating that Australians should be preparing for global cooling. In the face of overwhelming scientific evidence for global warming, should we not be concerned that Maurice Newman is the chief business adviser to an already climate change sceptic Prime Minister?
TONY JONES: And Penny Wong, I think that is think that is Maurice Newman, he's talking about his French cousin. Maurice Newman obviously did make these remarks?
PENNY WONG: Yes.
TONY JONES: Go ahead.
PENNY WONG: And as your question indicates, they're out of step with the overwhelming majority of peer reviewed and respected scientists about what is happening. I don't think it's - I was Minister for climate change, negotiated with Heather.
HEATHER RIDOUT: We did.
PENNY WONG: You know, we actually came to an agreement on a carbon price. That's a long time ago, isn't it?
HEATHER RIDOUT: We came to an agreement with Warren's party as well.
PENNY WONG: There you go. That's right.
WARREN TRUSS: No, you didn't.
HEATHER RIDOUT: Yes, we - well, no, the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party.
PENNY WONG: We came to agreement with the Liberal Party until they did Malcolm Turnbull over.
HEATHER RIDOUT: The Liberal Party, yeah.
PENNY WONG: That's what actually happened.
TONY JONES: Then you came to an agreement - then you came to an agreement with the Greens and gave a carbon price that stayed for in five years, which was actually...
HEATHER RIDOUT: Unfortunate.
TONY JONES: ...not a very good idea politically.
PENNY WONG: Sure. No. No, I think - I think...
HEATHER RIDOUT: Unfortunate indeed.
PENNY WONG: I think we were in the second-best word but I always thought on this issue bipartisanship was better but, regrettably, that moment passed. But I think it is a great concern that we have the Prime Minister being advised by someone who holds views which are really not consistent with the mainstream science but, more importantly, leaving aside the individual, I think it's a concern that we're still having this argument. What evidence more do leaders - community leaders, youth leaders, political leaders, business leaders - need of the risk to us and to our grandchildren for us to stop having a threshold argument about whether we need to take out some insurance and do something about it and getting on to actually do it?
TONY JONES: Okay, Warren Truss, what did you make of Maurice Newman's claim that the world is actually cooling and we should prepare for that, rather than warming?*
WARREN TRUSS: Well, the Prime Minister gets advice from lots of people, not exclusively Maurice Newman and I'm sure he weighs the various issues up.
PENNY WONG: Is he wrong?
WARREN TRUSS: And comes to a position which hopefully finds a better direction to our approach to these sorts of issues.
TONY JONES: Well, Penny Wong asked the obvious question, is he wrong? Because the scientists, most of them, believe the world is warming and he believes it's cooling.
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I think we need to listen to all the scientists and certainly there are scientists who have different views and one thing that I thought everybody believed around the table was that we should be open to whatever views are being expressed.
PENNY WONG: No. No. We should be open to the facts, I think, and the facts are useful in this debate.
WARREN TRUSS: What - what is - what is absolutely - what is absolutely clearly obviously the fact that a tax on Australians, a carbon tax on Australians, has done absolutely nothing to address climate change and never will. You know, we have about 1% of global emissions. Any response has to be done on a global basis and that global response is not apparent at the present time.
TONY JONES: Okay, very briefly though...
WARREN TRUSS: So we do need to look at...
TONY JONES: ...the question was specifically...
WARREN TRUSS: We do need to look at new ways of responding to these issues.
TONY JONES: The question was specifically about Maurice Newman and what he actually said and I asked you do you agree with him?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I wouldn't have used those words.
TONY JONES: That's a no then, is it?
WARREN TRUSS: I wouldn't have used those words.
TONY JONES: What words would you use?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I think that it's important for us to address these sorts of issues and we need to do it in a constructive way through direct action so that we're able to achieve things that are good in this country, irrespective of what other parts of the world might do.
TONY JONES: Yeah, I think that had the sort of ring of what Tony Abbott said about Joe Hockey's comment about the fuel tax and driving. Is it the sort of kiss of death to say, "I wouldn't put it that way"?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I wouldn't put it that way.
TONY JONES: Heather Ridout, briefly?
HEATHER RIDOUT: Well, look, I think we keep going back over this argument. Both political parties, even though the bipartisanship about the package broke down, they agree the globe is warming and that humans are contributing to it. They agreed with the same target with the same date on it. So why we keep going back and saying - having this debate about whether the science is true is so counterproductive, you know.
TONY JONES: Well, the reason is, if I may obviously bring you back to the question.
HEATHER RIDOUT: Yes. But, I mean...
TONY JONES: ...the reason is because the Prime Minister's chief economic adviser...
HEATHER RIDOUT: Exactly. But Maurice has a view about these issues and it's well known and he writes his opinion pieces and we are a broad church and that's fair enough. But basically the mainstream policy around this is already agreed between the political parties and it's not helpful, I don't think, that we keep going back revisiting the science, because the science is really incontrovertible about this issue and if we...
TONY JONES: Well, let's go to - let's go ...
HEATHER RIDOUT: ...and you know...
TONY JONES: Sorry.
HEATHER RIDOUT: You know, it's very hard for the world to do something together for future generations. The world can't do something together anyway, let alone for future generations, and this is the challenge around climate and it's a really difficult one. But it doesn't help when we have leadership all over the place on it and I think Warren's going back to where the whole issue does sit, that there is bipartisanship around the science and how we've got to move forward.
TONY JONES: Okay, let's go to Clive Palmer because not so long ago you didn't believe the science and now you do.
CLIVE PALMER: Well, I just want to say so - I just want to say for everybody, so they realise that the world is actually flat. We're living in a flat world. That's what we have to believe if we believe the sort of stuff you've just heard Maurice Newman say. But I just say that on 17 November...
TONY JONES: It's the sort of stuff you used to believe.
CLIVE PALMER: Well, you know, you have to have an open mind and change when you see things, Tony. I know you've been stuck in your views for years but you have got to think more and (indistinct), analyse them, you know. But all I would say is that at the G20 this year, there's a lot of countries that want to talk about the climate change, but it's not on the agenda. So on 17 November, one day after G20, we're having a climate change conference at Palmer Coolum resort, where we'll have international leaders from all over the world and the globe talking about climate change.
HEATHER RIDOUT: Lots of dinosaurs.
PENNY WONG: Is this with the dinosaurs?
CLIVE PALMER: ...and we'll invite Warren, he can come along if he wants to, right.
TONY JONES: Clive, can I just interrupt there because I did read today that apparently your conference is going to focus on the need to have a global emissions trading scheme. How does that square with the fact you just voted to get rid of the one here?
CLIVE PALMER: Well, what you'll find next week in the Senate, we're introducing an ETS, which, like Warren says, in accordance with Liberal Party policy, will take effect when our main trading partners have an ETS because it is a global solution. Air moves around the world. So we'll be stand up in the Senate, putting the ETS before the Australian people and trying to introduce it. Because we have to realise that if we want to trade with other countries and they have an ETS, they won't allow our products to enter unless we have a similar scheme and that's something (indistinct)...
TONY JONES: Well, let's just find out, have you got Labor's vote on this?
CLIVE PALMER: We don't know.
TONY JONES: I'm about to ask Penny Wong.
PENNY WONG: Well, we haven't seen this.
CLIVE PALMER: She doesn't know. She doesn't know yet.
PENNY WONG: We haven't seen the most recent iteration but...
CLIVE PALMER: But they support an ETS generally.
PENNY WONG: You know, our position is well known on this and, you know, we...
TONY JONES: Would you like - would you like to see a Palmer version of an ETS and will you consider it seriously and possibly vote for it?
PENNY WONG: I wanted a Labor version of an ETS.
CLIVE PALMER: Well, we've copied their version actually so but...
TONY JONES: So you got rid of it and now you're going to bring it back?
CLIVE PALMER: No, but we're bringing it back on certain conditions and that was if - if - if there's an ETS operatable in our main trading partners. You know, United States, China, Japan, Korea and Europe and what's wrong with that because we don't want to move alone. We want to know that it's happening everywhere and we need a global solution. That's why we've got Al Gore and other people pushing that.
HEATHER RIDOUT: But, Clive, those other countries are doing a lot about climate change.
CLIVE PALMER: They are.
HEATHER RIDOUT: They are doing an awful lot about it, even if they haven't got a national ETS. I mean, the US has got ETSes. They've got a lot of direct action. They've got a lot of regulation. There's almost a surrogate carbon price.
CLIVE PALMER: Well, if you look at our bill, it deals with equivalents.
HEATHER RIDOUT: The Chinese are doing an awful lot. The way carbon is being dealt with at a multilateral level is a bottom-up approach, not the top-down, you set a world target and off you go. It is more what countries can do and that's what the Paris conference next year is going to be all about. So I think we have to live in that new world and find a way through it and, you know, so...
CLIVE PALMER: Well, if we look at what New Zealand has done, for example.
HEATHER RIDOUT: But I think the ETS waiting for the world is like, you know, like the Clayton's ETS, the one you have when you don't have one.
CLIVE PALMER: Well, I don't - I don't think so. A lot of countries (indistinct).
TONY JONES: I'm going to move on, because we've got a few other questions to get to. This one's from Kate Applegarth.
FEDERAL ICAC
KATE APPLEGARTH: Yesterday on Insiders journalist David Marr said this country needs a Federal ICAC and any politician who stands in its way will have to explain themself. His comments echoed the sentiment of many Australian, who struggle to believe the dirty deals in New South Wales politics miraculously stop at the ACT border. To the Federal politicians on the panel, do you believe there should be a Federal ICAC, and if not, why not?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I think to establish such a body you'd have to argue that the current systems in place are either not working or have failed to deal with issues. We have a capacity to establish Royal Commissions that have investigatory powers. There's a couple of those going at the present time into particular instances of concern. To have a standing committee of this nature, I think to justify that, you would have to be able to establish that there were issues of concern that couldn't be addressed with the existing arrangements that are in place. They're obviously - there are obviously serious issues in New South Wales and it's, I think, a distressing situation and it's a reflection on the body politic and even, to some extent, on the way in which our democracy works that there's been these kinds of clearly moral failures in the NSW system.
TONY JONES: Tony Abbott seemed to be suggesting today, the real problem is the electoral funding laws in New South Wales. I mean, is he right?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I think they do...
TONY JONES: Are these New South Wales politicians just sort of conscientious objectors?
WARREN TRUSS: No, I think in reality there are issues with political party funding that perhaps ought to be addressed and there have been occasions when the major political parties have been talking about a way in which we might be able to ensure that the system is funded without the need to reach out the trade unions or to business or other sectors to help to provide the funding.
TONY JONES: I don't think that's the point he was - I think the point he was making was it's a complicated set of laws when you can't take money from developers.
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I agree that in New South Wales there are a range of additional rules in place that don't exist in other States that have added to the complexity and some of those rules then have sort of came in later and that has made it even more difficult. Now, I'm not trying to make excuses for what's gone on in New South Wales. It's (indistinct)...
TONY JONES: It's a bit hard when people are driving around in Rolls Royces throwing packets of money out the window.
WARREN TRUSS: Let me say, I lead a party with very meagre resources. It is not able to challenge the big parties for what's able to be allocated to political campaigning. We've relied on our grassroots membership over the years but we do actually need support from the corporate sector for us to survive as a political organisation and we don't have a wealthy benefactor who names the party after himself.
CLIVE PALMER: You did have once, Warren. You did have once.
WARREN TRUSS: And so in reality what we have to do is make sure that we work hard at a local level to raise the money to be a grassroots organisation so that we can faithfully represent the people who vote for us.
TONY JONES: You probably had your chance. LNP could have been Liberal National Palmer. He probably would have accepted that. Penny Wong?
WARREN TRUSS: No, he'd want Palmer first.
CLIVE PALMER: Absolutely.
PENNY WONG: Well, can I - can I first pick up on the reference you made to the Prime Minister's comments, where he said the problem in New South Wales is that there are laws banning developer donations.
TONY JONES: He didn't say it exactly like that.
PENNY WONG: No. No. No. I'm paraphrasing. The problem is that people have behaved corruptly. It's not that the laws are problematic or complex. The problem is people have tried to get around those bans by the arrangements which have been, you know, in the papers for some time and obviously here in New South Wales it's been a very big focus for a long time.
TONY JONES: Well, yes, quite a long time because here in New South Wales political corruption is bipartisan.
PENNY WONG: Yeah, no, I'm not trying to make a - like, Warren, I don't run away from the - some Labor's member's roles in this. It was completely...
TONY JONES: So should there be a Federal ICAC, just to go back to the question briefly?
PENNY WONG: Coming back to the question, I think that the view that has been put is that there are bodies which already exist in the Federal sphere which have powers which are not analogous to existing bodies in the State parliamentary process. So the Australian Crime Commission, which has the standing powers of a Royal Commission, the Commonwealth ombudsman, which obviously has quite extensive powers and let's be frank also, the Australian Senate, which I think you'd have to say is a body which certainly scrutinises the activities of the executive and others probably to a greater level than most upper houses. So I think the general view has been that we already have arrangements at the Federal level which provide for the sort of scrutiny that you're describing.
TONY JONES: Clive Palmer?
CLIVE PALMER: Well, the problem really is it's a bit of a cesspool, the whole country. If you go across to Queensland and New South Wales, we've got too many lobbyists being paid by business and by other interest groups to do their bidding. We see chiefs of staff, we see ministerial advisers moving from their position to lobbyists. You know, it's a really bad situation. That's how I see it. That how I've - I've said we need to revisit it and I think we need to be ever vigilant.
TONY JONES: Could you be potentially, if there was a Federal ICAC, a target?
CLIVE PALMER: Well, I don't mind being a target. I've been a target for everybody else in the last couple of years.
TONY JONES: You're facing allegations that you funnelled money from a - more than $12 million, that's the allegation, out of the Port Palmer operations to fund your election campaign. Is it true that that money was spent on your election campaign?
CLIVE PALMER: Yeah, I'd like to answer that for you, Tony, but, of course, that's gonna go up to the Supreme Court this week and it will all be - all be - now, what - what that's all about is that we're owed about $500 million by the Communist Chinese Government that doesn't want to pay it, that's now reverting this sort of rubbish.
TONY JONES: Well, that's not what that's all about actually. I mean there's two...
CLIVE PALMER: Well, that's - that's...
TONY JONES: From that account there's $2.17 million...
CLIVE PALMER: No. No, that's it's about. That's what it's about. It's...
TONY JONES: 2.17 million of that account went to a company called Media Circus. How much of that...
CLIVE PALMER: Well, I'm just trying to explain to you.
TONY JONES: May I just ask you how much of that was spent on your - your election campaign?
CLIVE PALMER: No, you can't, because that's up - that will go before the Supreme Court. We'll be knocking that case out because it's a lie, it's not true and we'll deal with that matter. You have been reading too much of The Australian and what Rupert Murdoch's telling you from New York. It's just not true.
MULTIPLE SPEAKERS TALK AT ONCE
TONY JONES: Let's put it this way, because obviously there are serious implications if you are caught doing something wrong.
CLIVE PALMER: Look, it's not trial by media, Tony, even though you'd like to help Rupert.
TONY JONES: This is trial by I'm asking questions. This is not a trial at all.
CLIVE PALMER: Yes, and I'm telling you - I'll just tell you again it's not true. It's false and we'll be suing this week. It will be in the Supreme Court. You can report it on the ABC and this will be thrown out. But it won't stop the fact that the Chinese Government wants to bring workers here to destroy our wage system. It won't stop the fact they want to take over our ports and get our resources for free. So far they've shipped 200 million dollars worth of iron ore out this country without paying for it and I don't mind standing up against the Chinese bastards and stopping them from doing it and I'll be doing that, mate. Don't worry about that.
TONY JONES: Simple question, just leaving...
CLIVE PALMER: Well, that's what it's about, Tony.
TONY JONES: Leaving that aside, well...
CLIVE PALMER: That's what it's about. It's not about $12 million. You know, this is a $10 billion project.
PENNY WONG: I might come down there and (indistinct).
TONY JONES: $12 million is quite a lot of money. So, no, I'm just asking can you put your hand on your heart in front of this audience now...
CLIVE PALMER: I can put my hand on my heart...
TONY JONES: ...and say that not a cent of the $12 million went into my election campaign?
CLIVE PALMER: I'm not going to answer questions that you put in my mouth, my friend. I can tell you that those allegations are not true. The relief they seek isn't true and we're taking immediate action in the Supreme Court to take it out that I'll be commencing proceedings against the lawyers that have said it, that have breached their oath of honesty to the court that they know it's false and we've got evidence to show that they know it's false and they're acting for an improper purpose, abusing processes and that's what...
TONY JONES: I'm not putting this in your mouth. It's a simple question.
CLIVE PALMER: No, but they're just doing it to link it...
TONY JONES: It's a simple question whether or not any of the 12...
CLIVE PALMER: No, I'm not - I'm not on trial here, Tony, and you're not the judge.
TONY JONES: ...any of the $12 million...
CLIVE PALMER: You come along to the court if you want to get the answer next week and find out. You're not the judge but I'm just telling you I'm not going to let their tactics of bluster and trying to have a go at people in this country stop people from defending our national assets. It's their legal tactic, that's all it is.
TONY JONES: So when will you answer the question about the 12 million?
CLIVE PALMER: Well, I'm in court next week. I've told you three times. But it's not up to you. That's not your job. You're not a judicial officer. We'll be suing them and they'll be answering the question. We've had three judgments in the Federal Court, in the Supreme Court of Western Australia and in arbitration against these Chinese mongrels. I'm saying that's because they're communists, because they shoot their own people, they haven't got a justice system and they want to take over this country and we're not going to let them do it.
TONY JONES: We've got time for just one more question. One more question and it's from Kaday Kamara. Go ahead, Kaday.
HOW TO VOTE?
KADAY KAMARA: Oh, hi. I'll be voting for the very first time so I would like all the members of the panel to convince me who I should vote for. So, yeah.
HEATHER RIDOUT: Well, I've spent my career being...
TONY JONES: This young lady is from Sierra Leone and it's a simple question. It's a confusing set of circumstances.
HEATHER RIDOUT: It is.
TONY JONES: You're looking at Australian politics, who would you...
HEATHER RIDOUT: Well, you know, one of the most confusing things is that New South Wales has all these problems, yet the new Government in New South Wales is doing a really good job. Unemployment, it's the second lowest in Australia now. It's attracting more people, more investment. So you have this perverse political situation where you have a big problem with electoral funding but you have a Government that's come in and has done a pretty good job and Mike Baird, all strength to his arm, because I think he's a decent guy. My view about politics, you have to have the set of values yourself and then you have to measure them against the party and that's how you have to approach it. I've always had a very strong view about what I like about Australia. Very strong safety net. When we're buoyant economically we can strengthen it, as we did with the old paid parental leave scheme, not the new-fangled thing, the old one. And then everybody has a to have crack above that and political parties that operate from the centre usually abide by that kind of construct and that's how I see it.
TONY JONES: Okay, Warren Truss, we'll go to you?
WARREN TRUSS: Well, I think that's a great question and I hope that when you vote for the first time you will choose a party that shares your values, that wants to make your new country strong, to provide opportunities in the future for you to achieve your objectives in Australia but also to ensure that we're able as a caring society to be able to look after those who need help in our community. We want a strong economic plan so that we're able to deliver strong social objectives and I think we also want an inclusive society where all the great people that make up our country are keen and willing to work together for our mutual benefit and when we help one another we become proud of our country and the rest of the world is then looking at Australia and saying this is the kind of place that we can rely upon to be a reliable partner and to play its role, its rightful role, around the globe.
PENNY WONG: I think the question when you vote is what sort of community do you want? What sort of nation do you want? That does come back to your values and I'd also encourage you to stay interested. Like, one of the things I always say to young people when I go to schools, which I actually think is the best thing - pretty much one of the best things you get to do as a politician is you get to go and talk to lot of schools and I always say you can make a decision not to be interested in politics but you can actually never make a decision not to be affected by it and so if you're going to be affected you may as well be a bit interested so that's what I'd say to you. You know, I could give you a pitch about Labor and fairness but I hope tonight on the panel you've seen some of that. What I'd say is fundamentally it's a decision about what sort of community you think we should have and what sort of nation you think we should have.
CLIVE PALMER: Well, I think you should vote for somebody you believe is best for you and for your circumstances and will do the most for your community. I think one of the big things we've got in Australia is democracy where we've got a polarity of decision making and the more we have that the better off we are. So I'd encourage more diversity of opinion. Just like we've got lot of people that come from different countries of the world, they make the economy, the country, everyone richer. Just the same thing is true in politics. It's not our party difference to Penny's or Warren's. The fact we can have these debates means we can really have a free society and, in the final analysis, that's what I think is really important for Australia.
TONY JONES: And John Falzon.
JOHN FALZON: Thank you for your beautiful question. I would say three things. Firstly the great feminist insight from Carol Harnish from the title of an essay she wrote in 1969, the personal is political. That's the first principle. Secondly, I would say that - there's a great quote from Augustine of Hippo who says hope has two beautiful daughters, their names are anger and courage, anger at the way things are and courage to make sure they do not remain the way they are. And, thirdly, I would say to you that, you know, all good policy comes from below. All of the great social achievements in this country, this is real active democracy, the great achievements have come from below, by ordinary people demanding change under the guiding stars of struggle and hope, so I'll just leave you with the beautiful words of the late great Aboriginal poet Bobby Sykes who said, and this is what we need, a revolution, a change in the way our country is run so that people come before profits. She said, "The revolution is alive while it lives within us, beating, making our hearts warm, our minds strong for we know that justice is inevitable, like birth."
TONY JONES: Thank you very much. That is all we have time for tonight. Please thank our panel: Heather Ridout, John Falzon, Warren Truss, Penny Wong and Clive Palmer. Thank you. Next Monday we'll be in Melbourne with a rather more literary Q&A, we'll be joining the Melbourne writers festival with former Foreign Minister and global crisis guru Gareth Evans; leading political journalist Paul Kelly; epidemiologist and Indonesian observer, author Elisabeth Pisani; and the first black African woman to be short listed for the Man Booker Prize, Zimbabwean novelist NoViolet Bulawayo. Until next week's Q&A, goodnight.
Warren Truss
Penny Wong
Clive Palmer
Heather Ridout
John Falzon
Audience: Coalition 40%, ALP 37%, Greens 12%, Unspecified 8%, Other 3%
Discuss the Questions
Here are the questions our panel faced this week. Tell us what your answer would be or what you think our panellists need to say.
Catherine Wallace asked: Mr Hockey says he is so sorry for his comments about the poorer Australians regarding their usage of cars. He also stated that he is and has been concerned about the poor for a long time. If Mr Hockey is so genuinely concerned, why then does his budget place the harshest measures on the elderly and poorest Australians, while only one small temporary tax is being placed on the richest Australians?
Laurie Matthews asked: I am a provider of accommodation services to homeless young people who face the prospect of having their Youth Allowance cut to zero the day they finish their training course. If they don't get a job the next day they will inevitably have their leases cancelled for non payment of rent - are we prepared for the consequences of further disenfranchising these young people? How do we expect people to live on zero income?
Dean Shachar asked: Clive Palmer, Why was it such a budget crisis then, and not now? You are in a position now, as the balance of power, to do something for the country - to get the budget on track and push forward with it. What's changed?
Anh Pham asked: Given the stalling of the Budget, what alternatives do you suggest to reduce the deficit whilst ensuring social equality is upheld?
*CLIMATE: MAURICE NEWMAN
Neema Zahedi asked: I would like to direct this question to Penny Wong. As the former minister for Climate Change, what are your thoughts on Maurice Newman recently launching into another embarrassing attack on climate science - this time stating that Australians should prepare for global cooling. In the face of overwhelming scientific evidence for global warming, should we not be concerned that Maurice Newman is the Chief Business Adviser to an already climate change skeptic Prime Minister?
Kate Applegarth asked: Yesterday on Insiders journalist David Marr said "This country needs a federal ICAC and any politicians who stand in its way will have to explain themselves". His comments echo the sentiments of many Australians who struggle to believe that the dirty deals in NSW politics miraculously stop at the ACT border. To the politicians on the panel, do you believe there should be a federal ICAC and if not, why not?
Kaday Kamara asked: I will be voting for the very first time at the next election. Can the panel convince me who I should vote for?
Broadcast 18 Aug 2014 18 Aug 2014 Mon 18 Aug 2014 at 11:35am
Full Episode Playing
Duration: 1 minute 6 seconds 1m 6s
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text:
Die Mindoro-Ratte (Anonymomys mindorensis) ist ein kaum bekanntes Nagetier der Philippinen-Insel Mindoro.

Alle Exemplare wurden an den Hängen des Ilong Peak im Nordosten der Insel gesehen. Sie hatten eine Kopfrumpflänge von rund 12 Zentimeter, hinzu kamen etwa 20 Zentimeter Schwanzlänge. Sie waren oberseits hellbraun und unterseits weißlich. Das Fell war stachelig-borstig, der Schwanz trug eine Quaste. Äußerlich ähnelt die Mindoro-Ratte einer Weißbauchratte (Gattung Niviventer), ist aber anatomisch durch eine kürzere Schnauze und in Relation größere Zähne von dieser zu unterschieden.

Mindoro-Ratten sind anscheinend Baumbewohner. Der einzige Fundort befindet sich in rund 1400 Meter Seehöhe. Die IUCN listet die Art unter "zu wenig Daten vorhanden" (data deficient).

Die Mindoro-Ratte ist nicht nahe mit anderen philippinischen Altweltmäusen verwandt, sondern bildet mit einigen anderen südostasiatischen Arten die Dacnomys-Gruppe.

Literatur
 Ronald M. Nowak: Walker's Mammals of the World. 2 Bände. 6. Auflage. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD u. a. 1999, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9.
 Michael D. Carleton, Guy G. Musser: Order Rodentia. In: Don E. Wilson, DeeAnn M. Reeder (Hrsg.): Mammal Species of the World. A taxonomic and geographic Reference. Band 2. 3. Auflage. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore MD 2005, ISBN 0-8018-8221-4, S. 745–752.

Weblinks

Langschwanzmäuse

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia