TONY JONES: Good evening and welcome to Q&A. I'm Tony Jones and answering your questions tonight: News Limited columnist and host of ABC 2's Dumb, Drunk and Racist, Joe Hildebrand; ABC broadcaster turned State Liberal minister Pru Goward; British comedian actor and writer Lenny Henry; Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist, Brian Schmidt; and the Age Discrimination Commissioner and former Hawke Government Minister Susan Ryan. Please welcome our panel.

Q&A is live from 9.35 Eastern Standard Time and simulcast on News 24 and News Radio. Go to the website to send a question or join the Twitter conversation using the hashtag that just appeared on your screen. Let's go straight to our first question tonight. It's from Susan Germein.

IS TIME SPEEDING UP?

SUSAN GERMEIN: My question is for Brian Schmidt. I'd like to know if time is speeding up or whether my sense of the days going so quickly is merely due to a combination of the massive demands of 21st century life and my own advancing years. In other words, is there never enough time simply because there is less time?

TONY JONES: Brian?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Wow.

LENNY HENRY: (Indistinct) I think the flight over here proves that there's more time. The stewards now are telling you to go to sleep when you don't want to go. "Go to sleep straight away. It's going to be a long time. Put your pyjamas on now. Go to sleep now." "I don't want to go to sleep." "Once upon a time." Brian, go ahead.

BRIAN SCHMIDT: So time is an interesting construct in science. Time is the metronome by which we measure how the universe progresses and so the idea of time speeding up or slowing down doesn't really make sense. Time just is. It is the way we measure everything else and so, yes, I remember when I was five the year lasted for what seemed like 20 years and now my life seems to pass by much more quickly but that is simply a relative view that we have of the world around us and I'm afraid that, yes, as you get older, things are going to speed up but it has nothing to do with the physics of what I study.

TONY JONES: So the accelerating universe does not include time?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: No, it includes time but time is the metronome which we, you know, relate everything that we measure to and so it's, you know, how many times an atom vibrates back and forth is the way we keep track of time and it's sort of a construct which is very difficult to really define. I had an eight year old come up and said "Tell me what time is?" in one of my lectures and I said "Well, I really can't tell you because there is no real way to define time. It just is".

TONY JONES: Lenny Henry, you were going to say that, weren't you?

LENNY HENRY: I was going to say that. I had that written down. Do you think the kid was just asking you what the time was?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: I hadn't thought of that.

TONY JONES: It is possible. Susan Ryan?

SUSAN RYAN: Well, I'm a bit worried about the metronome. We used to have the metronome ticking away when we learnt the piano and if we didn't keep up with the metronome we got a hit on the knuckles by the cranky old nun so I'm a bit concerned about this. But I guess it means it's something that just goes on evenly and you can't stop it. On the other hand, as we get older, now, I think you should all think time might go faster but we can appreciate it more because we know more. We understand more. We know what's going on so we can make better use of that metronome business as we get older and it is great.

TONY JONES: Joe Hildebrand?

JOE HILDEBRAND: Well, I think the take home message here is that we're all going die and sooner than we'd like.

SUSAN RYAN: Correct.

JOE HILDEBRAND: And I'm nearly middle aged now and I am terrified by the prospect of death. It consumes my every waking hour which, again, is counter productive and it's not just me that I worry about, it's the world and how it will function without me when I'm gone, you know. I mean Twitter has taken out life insurance.

TONY JONES: This explains the heavy drinking that goes along with the racism.

JOE HILDEBRAND: Very much. Well, this is the thing because the more you worry about death and the more you're scared of dying, the more you drink to bring it on quicker so it's a very complex human paradox, Tony.

TONY JONES: Pru Goward?

PRU GOWARD: Well, I think you're right. It is about ageing and the point is ageing is not very nice but the alternative is worse, as Joe suggests. So, you know, we're a bit stuck with getting older and I reckon the reason it seems to go so fast is I don't remember as much. I don't remember every agonising minute and second of every day like I did when I was a five year old child so it all seems to go a bit faster but it's all rich.

TONY JONES: As time moves on, let's go to our next question in a metronomic fashion and it's from James Stancliffe.

STATE OF ORIGIN RACISM

JAMES STANCLIFFE: When I was at the State of Origin match last Wednesday, I heard many racist epithets directed at the Aboriginal players in the Queensland team and Akuila Uate after he conceded the try. Does this represent a small proportion of Australians or is this systemic of a larger problem within our society?

TONY JONES: Joe Hildebrand?

JOE HILDEBRAND: Look, I'm sorry to say that we did this show, which I was plugging ruthlessly before the show, Dumb, Drunk and Racist, which goes to air...

LENNY HENRY: Which is, can I just say, that is the best firm of lawyers ever. Call 1800-Dumb-Drunk-and-Racist. We'll represent you now. Sorry, Joe. Carry on.

JOE HILDEBRAND: Look, I can't follow that.

LENNY HENRY: Yes, you can and you will.

JOE HILDEBRAND: So we did do the show. Obviously we wanted it to, as Lenny suggested, be a nice sort of, you know, unprovocative, you know, uncontroversial title and I thought we'd be sort of talking about a bunch of people that would say, you know, I'm not racist but - you know, I'm not racist but I'm a bit worried about, you know, Muslims or I'm not racist but, you know, I think maybe there's too many asylum seekers or whatever whatever. And what we actually saw when we took - we took a bunch of Indians around Australia and just see - you know, thought let's see what happens and some of the stuff we saw was full on. Like we had people throwing, you know, heil Hitler salutes. We had someone call out just randomly walking past on the streets of downtown Melbourne, you know, "White pride mother f...kers".

PRU GOWARD: Is that because the television was going? Is that there were cameras there?

JOE HILDEBRAND: Well, no, the worst part was we were still setting up. We only barely managed to get it on tape. It was very selfish.

LENNY HENRY: If only they could have waited to hurl the racist epithets.

JOE HILDEBRAND: Neo-Nazis are very selfish. White supremacists (indistinct).

TONY JONES: Joe, I'm just going to interrupt you. I'm just going to go back to our questioner. What were you hearing and I presume...

JAMES STANCLIFFE: I don't think it is appropriate for live television.

TONY JONES: Okay, we'll you don't actually have to describe what was actually said but you're saying that racial epithets were being thrown at Aboriginal players by members of the audience, is that right?

JAMES STANCLIFFE: Yes. Yes, repeatedly, especially when people like Greg Inglis were able to get into position and, you know, play as a good player, they were always implying that it was due to their race and being disparaging (indistinct).

LENNY HENRY: I hate that. I hate that. Why do they always say that? And where were you in relation to these people that were shouting out these things?

JAMES STANCLIFFE: Like next to them, around them.

LENNY HENRY: Why didn't you kick some arse?

TONY JONES: I was actually going to ask, how did the other people in the crowd respond because, I mean, that is incredibly offensive?

JAMES STANCLIFFE: Yeah, and that was the thing that more surprised me was that it was seemingly accepted by the crowd. There wasn't any reaction to it. In fact I heard several people applaud it and repeat it.

LENNY HENRY: No way.

PRU GOWARD: Look, I think racism is sort of endemic in every country. I think people prefer to be with people like themselves and they seek and they identify people who are different to themselves as somehow inferior. I think the test of a country is not whether its people are racist, because I suspect that happens throughout the world. I think the test of a country is the laws and the mechanisms it has in place to deal with it and I think Australia can be very proud of our Human Rights Commission, our anti-racism laws at both Federal and State level and a general, at least, formal culture, at least, of disapproval of that and that's an education which certainly focuses on it and that's about the best we can probably hope for in a democracy.

LENNY HENRY: No, the best is to kick arse when you hear people say that stupid shit next to you. You need to kick some arse.

PRU GOWARD: And peer pressure helps.

TONY JONES: I rather suspect if you'd have been sitting next to them they might not have said it.

LENNY HENRY: I have never met a racist Australian. They're all like, "How how ya doing, Len? Brilliant. I love ya mate. Have a beer. There's my wife, take her please. You're bloody huge." Nobody says anything to me.

TONY JONES: Let's go to another question on this subject. It's from Justin Li.

RACIAL ASSAULTS

JUSTIN LI: Yes, recently a group of Chinese international students were assaulted on a train in Sydney and the news went viral in China but in Australia a lot of the online comments were pretty unsympathetic towards the students. What does the panel think explains our attitudes to that situation?

TONY JONES: Susan Ryan, let's go to you?

SUSAN RYAN: Well, first of all it's terrible to hear about it and we did hear about such events in Melbourne just a few years ago. But I think it's very important to realise that it's not typical. It's terrible when it happens, it needs to be addressed by legislation and everything else, but it's not typical. When those Melbourne events happened, I was on the Council of the University of New South Wales actually, just down the road. We have many, many, many overseas students, a huge number of them. We immediately said "Has anything like that happened at the university? " We could not find one case where an overseas student - Indian or Chinese or Middle Eastern - had had any difficulty. So although that doesn't mean that there's no problem, it does mean that many communities can create an environment where the problem doesn't arise so we need to focus on it but we need to know, look, it's not all of us, Lenny, I promise you.

TONY JONES: Brian...

JOE HILDEBRAND: I think ...

TONY JONES: I'll go to Joe in a second. I just want to hear from Brian. What are your thoughts? I mean you came here as an American. Did you find the country to be racist or at least more racist than America?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: So I think it's certainly behind the United States in terms of a couple of decades in terms of its tolerance and so I don't think that many Australians are overtly racist but there is still a tolerance to it which I do not see in the United States. So what, you know, you saw in the football game would not I don't think would have happened in the United States. It simply would not have been tolerated by, you know, the people around it. It wouldn't have been one person.

PRU GOWARD: Mind you, I mean, you have had the most extraordinary race history which is really sensitised.

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Yeah. Oh, I agree and so it's a matter of getting it to be on everyone's agenda that when you see it it's just not on and so...

LENNY HENRY: Not acceptable.

PRU GOWARD: It's not acceptable.

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Yeah, it's not acceptable at any level. You stop it. You stamp it out and when it's completely unacceptable, when you see it on a train or when you see it in a football game, then it will disappear.

TONY JONES: Lenny, seriously...

LENNY HENRY: My friend, Garth Crooks, actually, is part of a campaign in Britain called Kick Racism Out of Football and they have made inroads into stopping racist behaviour, the CCTV camera on the crowd so that if anything confrontational happens like that, the people are spotted and their photographs are taken and the police know who they are. So I think that you're absolutely right, I think legislation needs to be passed about this kind of thing because it's intolerable and we shouldn't put up with it. We're all human beings and how interesting to be in a place where it's such a multicultural society. Everywhere I go there's Chinese food, Indian food, Chinese people, there's black people, there's white people, there's all sorts of people and yet there is racism here but there's racism everywhere. I was on The Queen's Jubilee last week and I was the only black guy there. If Stevie Wonder's band hadn't turned up it would have just been me.

TONY JONES: And apparently you had to drag Rolf Harris off the stage.

LENNY HENRY: Yeah, but let's not get into that because otherwise we're going to have to get Brian to explain time to Rolf so that he can cut his, "Two little," ... Rolf, time is a metronome. You need to - to you it's three minutes. To us it's 17 years, Rolf. Stevie Wonder's waiting and he doesn't know he's black. He just wants to get on there, sing Superstition, sing Happy Birthday, even though it wasn't her birthday, and get the hell off. But, no, I think racism, it's about being a human being really. We're all human beings and, like Bob Marley said, One Love. Let's love each other instead of all this intolerance.

JOE HILDEBRAND: He loved a lot of people, didn't he?

LENNY HENRY: Bob loved a lot of people.

JOE HILDEBRAND: Like, he loved everybody individually.

LENNY HENRY: (Indistinct)

JOE HILDEBRAND: That's attention to detail.

LENNY HENRY: The guy was a Jamaican, man.

JOE HILDEBRAND: I think the interesting thing I've found was there's a bit of a - I think there's a disconnect between the attacks that took place on Chinese students and the ones on Indian students where, of course, if you're feeling like a stranger in a strange land you're going to think that there's a racial element and the cops, you know, perhaps there was some vast conspiracy but the cops didn't find there was an overwhelming racial element to it. But it's the bad pizza theory. You get 20 good pizzas, you don't tell anyone. You get one bad pizza, you tell everyone you know. So I think there's that and that might not necessarily check out but the weird thing about Australia is the casual sort of racism. Like the weird thing - and I think Brian's right when he says things that we say because we might just think they're funny or you might think it is funny to chuck a Hitler salute as you're walking past, you know, a bunch of people because they're not white or, you know, you might think it's funny to yell out, you know, "Go back to where you came from" literally - just I think maybe they'd seen the show - but when they were walking around.

TONY JONES: But in what universe are those things funny?

JOE HILDEBRAND: Well, this is the thing. This is why I think we are a bit behind. This is the - like, in India, of course, you have, you know, racial and cultural and religious riots that are far more fiercer than anything you see here, where people get killed and it goes on and on. But as one of the participants in the show beautifully, sort of, said, he said but there we don't find it funny. There we don't laugh about it and when we saw the Cronulla riots, what really upset him was the fact that people were laughing about it. They thought it was a party.

TONY JONES: Okay, let's go to another question on this general subject from Suhas Nayak.

RACE - WHO IS AUSTRALIAN?

SUHAS NAYAK: In Australia I am often asked, "Where are you from?" Australians typically do not assume that I am Australian, even though I grew up here. I spent several years in the US and Americans always assumed I was American. When will all of us learn that Australians come in all colours and all accents?

TONY JONES: Pru Goward?

PRU GOWARD: Well, we're a packet of Smarties, there's no doubt about it. We are a very mixed group of people and I think it's interesting the way Australians are so fascinated by foreign accents. It seems to me that if you speak with an Australian accent, you're much more acceptable, whatever colour you are, than if they can detect any accent and then it's a guess the country competition. But, yes, it is a sign of maturity. Australians are great travellers, as you know. You know, always looking for an overseas trip. Went to a war once on that basis and I suspect it's part of being a very isolated country for a long time and we do tend to classify outsiders and insiders. But go to Germany, they too, you know, talk about outsiders and see themselves as a contained group.

TONY JONES: That didn't work so well for the Germans, though, did it?

SUSAN RYAN: Look, a positive note, where will we change? Little children are not racist. I go down to Coogee Beach and if you know Coogee, the south end of the beach, there's a little pool where kids play. It's terrific, safe and nice. There are kids of all colours. There are African kids, there are Indian kids. There are Middle Eastern kids. Their mothers or nanas are there in their hijabs. There are, you know, Anglo Celtic kids. There are kids with freckles, like I used to be when I was a little kid and they all jump in and out. They all do exactly the same things, yeah, with the water and with their buckets and spades and so on, as we did when we were little kids playing in the same spot and, you know, there is no sign that the kids are picking on each other or uneasy with each other or, indeed, their minders, usually their mothers, I am pleased to say, Pru, sometimes their fathers these days or their grandfathers. So I think if we can capture what little kids do and make that our whole culture, we're on the way.

TONY JONES: The problem is they learn racism or, at least, some of them do.

SUSAN RYAN: Where? I mean, it's a...

TONY JONES: Well, that's the question. Brian do you have any thoughts on this?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Well, you learn it from the environment around you and you're typically going to learn it from your family, would be number one, and, you know, the old generation are more racist than the younger generation and we slowly, you know, transform. So I think where you're not going to be asked that is in 15 or 20 years when there is just a whole generation of people from all over the place that were born here and people are used to it.

LENNY HENRY: We were talking earlier about education as well. I think in schools it's really important to emphasise cultural exchange so that people understand about other cultures and what they mean and how to interrelate with them. Education is vitally important with this. It's not just about family. It's about what your teachers say and how your school friends are taught to react to you. Going forward as a new generation, that's what's, I think, one of the most important things.

TONY JONES: I've heard that as a kid, you actually had to learn to speak in several accents...

LENNY HENRY: Yeah.

TONY JONES: ...in order to actually pass on the streets?

LENNY HENRY: Yeah, well, Integration is very - for an immigrant family, my mum literally took me to one side. We're a Jamaican family and said, "You must learn to integrate with the people then. We must integrate. You have to integrate otherwise you won't fit in. Talk like the people then. Eat their food." So I did. I used to go and have egg and chips at my friend's house. I used to go and have tea. I didn't know what tea was. You know, we used to have a half a sheep and some rice and egg and chips, you finish it in two seconds. It was brilliant, you know. Are you throwing an Hitler salute or do you want to speak? I was about to come over there and kick your arse. Joe, did you see that?

JOE HILDEBRAND: I know.

LENNY HENRY: It was like this. It was like this. That's a damn shame. This is good. This is good: Hello. Hello. May I speak please? Not this "Hey!" Learn the difference.

TONY JONES: Okay, you've terrified him now. Let him speak.

JAMES STANCLIFFE: What I was going to say before was I guess one of the - just on the point we were making before was one of the most terrifying things was that two of the most vocal people there were two 10 year old boys.

LENNY HENRY: No way.

JAMES STANCLIFFE: And in that situation they have spent as much time being educated by their parents from the time before school as they have at school and obviously they haven't been able to not learn racism from school. They've learned it. So do we need to do something more?

TONY JONES: Joe, let's - did you sort of get any kind of philosophical position on this while making this outrageous piece of television?

JOE HILDEBRAND: Yeah, look, I think that - I mean in a sense - in a sense it sort of proves right. I think people sort of instinctively, you know, are selfish people. They think about themselves first, then they think about their family first, then they think about their sort of community and then they'll think about their country and then, lastly, you know, you might sort of start to think about the whole world and it's kind of - I mean that's sort of the arc from right to left, you know. I mean I think there's an instinctive element to it which you might call the sort of right and then you've got your sort of collective world view, which you might call the left. So I think people you know, the needle will kind of spin back and forth between those extremes. With 10 year old kids, my understanding is that when kids are 10, they're real little monsters and that's when the brain starts recognising difference and starts to and it's actually a psychological process more than necessarily an environmental process. I'm sure Philip Zimbardo or someone will call up and say I'm wrong but so the kids actually are almost conditioned to sort of see themselves as different and to pick out differences. That's why you often get bullying at that age and things like that so in a way it's all sort of part of growing up, if you like, for want of a better word, and you just sort of have to beat the hell out of them, you know, with maybe a large stick or - but, of course, the Government won't let you do that anymore, will they?

TONY JONES: No, well, I certainly hope not. Let's move along. You're watching Q&A. Our next question comes from Seeima Tarogi.

SCIENCE AND CREATION

SEEIMA TAROGI: Hi, Brian. What's your opinion on God, creationism and the genesis of the universe and do you think there will ever be a time when religion and science will meet and be able to coexist?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: So I describe myself as a militant agnostic, which means that I don't know the answer to these questions but I also don't think anyone else knows the answer to them. So, you know, where does the genesis of the universe begin? Well, we describe it as the big bang but I don't know what started the big bang. I don't even really know what the big bang is and so when people want to go through and say, well, I believe that the universe started by God starting it, that's fine by me. It's not necessarily what I believe but I can't say that it's not true. Whether or not religion and science are always at loggerheads is not clear to me at all. There are many, many scientists who are deeply religious. It requires faith. It requires faith and stuff you do not know. I myself, I don't really have that faith. I am happy to accept that I just simply don't know, for example, how the universe started and if we ever do figure out what started the big bang, then you'll have to ask, well, what started the thing that started the big bang? So I am never, ever going to solve this problem. I can always abstract it out so that I cannot answer the question.

TONY JONES: But do you regard the big bang as the beginning of the universe that we know?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: It is certainly the thing that started the universe as we know it going, the big bang, 13.7 billion years ago and so I can describe it in those words. I can take the universe back to when it's about a second old and really understand it in detail. Before that things become progressively more and more fuzzy but...

TONY JONES: That the issue, isn't it, really? If they become more and more fuzzy, it means there is no scientific explanation or even theory as to what happened before the big bang?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: There can be theory but, you know, the problem is you've got to be able to test it. So theories are one thing, testing is another. There is no way right now to test what came before the big bang and so at that point - I mean I can't test God either so they're really on equal grounds for me. If you can't test it...

TONY JONES: Is there any theory that you would like to see tested if it were possible?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: I like to test any theory on anything. That's the whole basis of science is testing theories and so everything needs to be tested.

TONY JONES: Susan Ryan?

SUSAN RYAN: Well, I think science is absolutely fantastic and I think we're always learning more from scientists, brilliant people like yourself, and we should be learning more and there should be more science in our schools and more university students doing science but I've observed in my very long life that people can be very scientifically sophisticated, experienced and they still say "But there's something else and we call it God." Now, as you say, you can't prove or disprove that. Where the religion stuff comes in - I am also an agnostic. I'm with you. But where I can see a good role for religion is where it motivates people to become compassionate, committed to social justice, altruistic, generous, non racist and resisting racism. When you see that religion is the kind of motif for some people behaving like that, you think okay, that's fine, but we don't all need that particular impetus but for those who have it, respect it.

TONY JONES: Lenny Henry?

LENNY HENRY: I'm the son of a my mum was a lay preacher, born-again Christian, so, you know, she used to preach in the house. My sister is a born-again Christian and does 40 minute graces before we eat so - "And then, Jesus, this food that we are about to eat, we must be kind to each..." - you know, the graces just go on forever and ever and ever and I don't know what I believe. I believe - you know, I believe in something and I love my mum and I believe that she would beat me if I was on this program and said - and did not say hallelujah and amen but I'm fascinated by Brian, who I just thought was some bloke. I'm really - I think it's extraordinary that I am on the panel with a Nobel Peace Prize guy.

TONY JONES: Well, it wasn't a peace prize, to be fair.

LENNY HENRY: He didn't win a peace prize?

TONY JONES: No, not so much.

LENNY HENRY: What did he win?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Just physics.

LENNY HENRY: Oh, for God sakes. Physics? I hate physics.

TONY JONES: Please don't leave just yet.

LENNY HENRY: No. No.

TONY JONES: Joe?

JOE HILDEBRAND: Look, I think, sort of, you know, hardcore militant atheism is quite lazy. For one thing, I mean, who are you trying to impress? I mean if you're going around telling everyone, hey, I'm an atheist, what is in it for them? I think that it's quite a lazy point of view. I think it's sort of, you know, I mean it's easy to put forward a...

TONY JONES: Isn't it lazier, in fact, to be an agnostic, because then you don't have to take a position? I mean to be an atheist, you have to take a pretty strong position, then argue it.

JOE HILDEBRAND: Well, no, I think anyone - I think just as a fundamentalist Christian or a fundamentalist sort of, you know, zealot, is also quite lazy, you know, forsaking all reason just for one idea. I think, you know, a fundamentalist atheist who discounts all sort of knowledge of that, you know, I mean you get to the point where you say billions and billions and billions of people can't be wrong and then the thing that I find really interesting is that even if there is no God or even if there never has been or whatever, why have so many people since time immemorial, since you saw the first instances of, you know, of ancient gravesites, where they put little relics there to see them into the afterlife, why did people do that? Why did they feel the need to create that and I think that even if there isn't a sort of interventionist God looking down on everyone, the fact that there has been so much of a force of will from so many people and it seems to be part of the human condition to need to believe in something like that, almost generates God. Like, you know, God seems to exist, even if he's just man made.

TONY JONES: Pru Goward?

PRU GOWARD: Well, if God didn't exist, we'd have to invent him, I mean, or her. I mean, I think that's the point.

LENNY HENRY: Or them.

PRU GOWARD: Yes, and many religions have many Gods.

TONY JONES: It's not particularly comforting, though, if you decide that you've invented something that doesn't exist.

PRU GOWARD: Well, I think the interesting connection between philosophy and science is science tests theories; philosophers create theories and I can see the connections except when it comes to that question about the beginning of the universe. I can't see the point of asking that question. How does it help us solve any of our problems? Having said that...

TONY JONES: Well, personally I think it would be very interesting to know that but I don't think we're going to find out.

PRU GOWARD: No, I don't think we are and so at a certain point you've got to move onto questions you can answer and that are useful but I think Joe's absolutely right. We need the human being needs to have an explanation for the unexplainable things. I mean that wonderful word understand, which means to be under the sky and look up for meaning, it's a very human thing to need to understand those big unknowable questions and if we weren't like that, we would be less than human.

TONY JONES: Well, I'll just quickly get the response of someone who does actually do that. Do you look up at the universe and think there must be something?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Well, there's an order to the universe and that's what I'm trying to understand and so the questions is do I need to know absolutely everything or I'm willing to say there are things I do not know and some people, the idea that we don't know how it all got going is absolutely unacceptable to them and they need to have a way of understanding that and religion is one way to do that. You have to have faith in something that is, you know, bigger than what we can know. On the other hand, I'm happy to go through and draw a line in the sand and say I just don't know and I am happy with that. There are things I don't know, move on.

JOE HILDEBRAND: There are known knowns and known unknowns.

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Exactly.

TONY JONES: Okay, let's move onto out next question which is from Bianca Balzer.

SPACE TRAVEL

BIANCA BALZER: Thank you. This is for Professor Schmidt. While you found the universe to be exponentially expanding, humanity's universe has stalled, with no man-travel below low earth orbit since the Apollo program. What do you see as the best path for humanity to expand into the heavens?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Ooh, that's a very expensive question, it turns out. So it is certainly true. We haven't put man beyond low earth orbit for many, many years, since when I was a small child, and the reason ultimately comes down is it's really expensive and so we're going to do it slowly and carefully and we have to figure out exactly why it is that we want, for example, to go to Mars. So that's sort of the big thing that people would like to do now. Now, part of it is just that it's there but if it cost $100 trillion then I think people have to ask ourself is that a worthwhile endeavour right now, while we have, you know other problems here on planet earth and I don't have an answer. It really comes down to how much is it worth for us to challenge ourselves? Now, if we wait longer and we think about it and take a long time we can make it cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. But, in the end, it's still going to be very, very expensive and I think at some point, you know, 10, 20, 30 million years from now, you know it may well be that we need to do it just because we have made earth unliveable, there's too many people here but right now it's really a luxury and I do - I see it as - it's a a luxury worth doing in moderation. That's why I think we do astronomy. I think it's worthwhile doing in moderation but I wouldn't be proposing that we spend half the GDP of the world on doing astronomy.

TONY JONES: Brian, the Voyager I probe is just about to leave the solar system, first man made object to do so. I mean part of the exercise is to see if there's life - intelligent life - outside of our solar system. Do you think that will be found?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: I think that we will find some sort of evidence of life if it exists. I assume bacteria and stuff are probably all across the universe and my guess is, in my lifetime, we'll start being able to see evidence of that in the atmospheres of planets we're finding that when they go in front of their suns we can - just like the transit of Venus, you can get a little glimpse of their atmosphere and there are certain things that bacteria or, you know, humans do. We put complex chemicals into our atmosphere that have very distinct signatures and so I think there's a very good chance we're going to be able to discover stuff like that.

TONY JONES: Do you think we...

LENNY HENRY: Is there anything that is going to do this (GRABS FACE AND ROARS)? Because I don't want to see that.

BRIAN SCHMIDT: I have to admit it's not mine...

LENNY HENRY: Have you seen Prometheus? Have you seen it? There's a think that goes (SHOVES FIST IN MOUTH AND ROARS). I don't ever want to see that. Let's not go to Mars.

TONY JONES: Bring back the voyager, in other words.

LENNY HENRY: Yeah, bring them back.

TONY JONES: Yeah, very dangerous.

LENNY HENRY: Aren't you scared of things coming to see us and going (PUFFS BODY OUT AND GROWLS), "Hello, Brian, I want a word with you".

BRIAN SCHMIDT: I have no particular desire to meet that...

LENNY HENRY: (GROWLING) "Time isn't a bloody metronome. That's my penis." Just the cheque please,. Thank you.

TONY JONES: I actually have to admit I am a little scared but not by an alien.

LENNY HENRY: But are you scared of what we might find when we do get up there? I mean it won't - come on it won't just be bacteria, will it?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: So the distances of space are so vast, it's going to be very hard to meet up with, you know, us on the other side of the galaxy.

LENNY HENRY: You mean people that look like us you mean?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: So I think we're going to be able to - well, you know, "us" being some intelligent form of life So I think we're much more likely for us to be able to detect them but we're going to be separated by so much distance we won't actually be able to go and shake their hands or be eaten alive by them as they run down our throats so, you know, no, I'm not scared.

LENNY HENRY: Thirty million years time thought, there is going to be an alien sitting here going "When are we going to be known as Australians? So I have got 19 arms and four heads. When are people going to talk to me like I am a bloody Australian".

PRU GOWARD: When you start drinking beer mate.

TONY JONES: If they're playing State of Origin footy, people will be saying whatever they like.

LENNY HENRY: I was at the State of Origin match the other day and this guy with nine heads says to me (GROWLS). And I'll be there going (USES OLD MAN VOICE) "Kick his arse".

TONY JONES: Joe, I'll go with you because you've been you've been searching for evidence of intelligent life on earth and haven't found it?

JOE HILDEBRAND: Yeah, we haven't even found it outside the major capitals.

LENNY HENRY: Come on Joe, that's harsh.

JOE HILDEBRAND: That is harsh. I'm just kidding. That's just the ABC crowd. I love it. Yeah, look, I think - yeah, I just don't know. I don't think I mean I think there has to be. The law of averages dictates that there must be but the law of averages then would also dictate that they can't be more advanced than us because then they would have found us which means that we are the smartest people in the universe, and we still can't find intelligent life outside the major capitals.

TONY JONES: It's a truly depressing thought.

LENNY HENRY: That's frightening.

TONY JONES: Okay, you're watching Q&A. It's live and unusual. The next question comes from John Gabriele.

SCIENCE DENIERS

JOHN GABRIELE: Yes. Having overcome centuries of astronomy deniers, how do we overcome climate change deniers?

TONY JONES: Brian Schmidt?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: So, you know, I don't like calling people deniers, so to speak. I think science is a very complicated process which, unfortunately, we need to do better to explain the concept of uncertainty to people. So the big problem that I see in the climate change debate is the inability to understand uncertainty and we need to go through and be able to explain why we think, you know, climate change is something we need to worry about given the fact that there is not a black and white answer. Right? So the current measurements of the earth warming up are, you know, they're there but they're not super strong yet because the earth hasn't warmed up much yet. But we do have, on the other side of the equation, physics that says when you put carbon dioxide in the atmosphere it does cause change and so I think getting people across that basic idea of climate change and then trying to figure out exactly how much it is and the uncertainties, it has to be a sort of a two-stage process. And whenever I meet people, they always seem to mix those two things into one, get confused, say, "No. No. It was warmer in 1,000 AD than you guys said therefore everything you say is rubbish." And I was kind of stunned. I said, "What does that have to do with the argument?" So it really requires people to have a more sophisticated understanding of the scientific process.

TONY JONES: Briefly, speaking of the astronomy deniers that were referred to by the questioner, many climate change sceptics actually regard Galileo as a hero because he stood up against the scientific orthodoxy of his day. How would you respond to that suggestion?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Well, it is certainly true that Galileo really invented the scientific method as we know today, so I would say that Galileo really was the first of what we would call modern day scientists. That being said, science always has a range of opinion, there is a consensus, there's a range of uncertainty and so what I like to get peoples' head around is we don't have a single answer for climate change. We have a whole range of answers and so when you're going through and trying to formulate policy and things, you need to think about the range of answers rather than saying yes, or no, which is how, of course, it is portrayed.

TONY JONES: Well, I mean, in the end governments have to say yes or no before they come up with a price on carbon, which leads to a tax that people have to pay or that, at least, a certain number of companies have to pay and it feeds into electricity prices and so you have a debate about the science.

BRIAN SCHMIDT: You do but there are policies which take into account the uncertainties of the whole thing and those need to be incorporated in the policy but they also need to be incorporated in the debate and we have to allow people to, in a scientific sense, dissent with the status quo. But those need to be held in a scientific context, not on programs like this but, rather, in, you know, universities and research institutions where the scientists, who are really working on this thing, can sort things out and then, at some point, policy makers are going to have to take the consensus of the scientific body and the uncertainties to fold in the correct answers.

TONY JONES: Briefly, Lenny Henry, any...

LENNY HENRY: That was so deep. It was brilliant. I love the way Brian kept saying Galileo and didn't go (SINGS) "Magnifico-o-o-o. I'm just a poor man, nobody loves me. He's just a poor boy from a poor family, spare him his life from this monstrosity. Will he come? Will he go? Will you let me go? Come on. Bismillah! No, we will not let you go. Let him go. Bismillah! No, we will" - come on Tony. "So you think you can stone me." Come on!

TONY JONES: Do you mind if I don't?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: You going to have to get Brian May...

LENNY HENRY: That was some Ben Elton there.

TONY JONES: Any moment your phone's going to go off. I just know it. Let's go to our next question. It's from Ian Manchester.

GROWTH VS SUSTAINABILITY

IAN MANCHESTER: Question to the panel, Tony. Today Julia Gillard is in Mexico for the G20 Summit. This coincides with the Rio Plus 20 Earth Summit. How can you align the G20 goals of unlimited economic growth with all the Earth Summit principles of sustainable development for an increasing population, given that we have a finite planet with finite resources?

TONY JONES: Susan Ryan?

SUSAN RYAN: Well, you have to do both and I think human beings can do two things at the same time. I think we do have to address what has happened to the European economy, to the Euro and we seem to have got a lot of that right, so I think it's very important that our Prime Minister is there. At the same time, we have to do things about the environment which we can do. The announcement that Tony Burke was going to make it Rio, had he been allowed to go, was about the national marine park, a big initiative to protect a lot of the fish species in Australia. Now, that has commercial opportunities. That means more tourists will go and see the national parks. It means the fish, who are in the protected areas, will grow and will swim to the non-protected areas, where fishers, as we call them these days, can collect them. So there's a whole economic possibility out of environment protection. But at the same time we can't just concentrate on that and not try to be a constructive partner in the discussions about how Europe is going to rebuild its failing economies again. So great to do both at the same time.

TONY JONES: Pru Goward?

PRU GOWARD: Well, I think the Rio summit, which is ten years on from the Ros Kelly Rio Summit, which is where climate change really first started to be discussed, is one thing and I think you're right probably. The aims of the two conferences are, in a sense, incompatible because one is about resource management and the other one assumes an unlimited amount of resources and, you know, we now have a carbon tax to deal with, which limits economic growth in some areas and that is going to make us more uncompetitive, I suspect, with other countries but I'm not quite sure why you would have to go to Rio to make the statement about the marine parks.

TONY JONES: Do you think that growth needs to be limited and that is part of the question because...

PRU GOWARD: Well, if you believe in sustainable resource management, then you would have to accept that economic growth uses up resources faster. So you've got competing priorities. You can't have both. I mean population is the biggest source of increased carbon emissions and increased resource utilisation so you can't have the two going at the same time and we've got to be honest about what we want. But, as Susan said, probably in the end, government, democratic governments, have to balance a bit of this and a bit of that and try and please everybody.

TONY JONES: Joe Hildebrand?

JOE HILDEBRAND: Well, I think the language of saying that growth needs to be limited is the wrong sort of language to use. I think growth needs to be directed. You know, I mean, you can have, you know, as people have pointed out, you can direct growth to different industries. The problem with the...

PRU GOWARD: We've seen the mistake that was, for God's sake.

JOE HILDEBRAND: Well, I think the problem with the whole carbon tax thing that you're alluding to is that there has been a crisis of political leadership. There's been a failure of political leadership and I think, to take it back to the all encompassing earlier question why people don't believe in climate change, ordinary people sitting around the kitchen table looking at their power bills aren't, you know, surfing the net for the latest scientific papers on climate research coming from Antarctica. They're not going to sift through that evidence themselves and they couldn't do it anyway. They're not qualified to. I'm not. No one on this panel except Brian is. The problem is so you rely on the political leaders to know better. You rely on political leaders to know what's good for you.

TONY JONES: So to come to the point, where do you see the failure of political leadership when at least one party has said, "Here's what we're going to do in order to try and solve this problem?"

JOE HILDEBRAND: Yeah, I'm glad you asked. The problem is that Kevin Rudd called it the greatest moral challenge of our time and then all of a sudden it wasn't and he dumped it at the behest of Julia Gillard, who subsequently said that there would be no carbon tax under a Government she led and we know within the party that she was regarded as a climate sceptic and then she got elected with a shoestring majority. In order to hold onto that she had to then put forward a carbon tax, having previously proposed the world's weirdest kind of climate change assembly.

SUSAN RYAN: It doesn't mean it is a wrong policy though. That doesn't mean it's the wrong policy.

JOE HILDEBRAND: It doesn't, no. No, it's doesn't mean it's the wrong policy. No, I believe in an emissions trading scheme. I think a carbon tax is the wrong model.

SUSAN RYAN: Well, that's where we're heading.

JOE HILDEBRAND: But I believe in that eventually. But the problem is that people think, well, if suddenly it's very important then it's not really important and you believe in it, then you don't believe in it...

PRU GOWARD: Inconsistency.

JOE HILDEBRAND: They say, well, how am I...

PRU GOWARD: What do you really believe?

JOE HILDEBRAND: If even the Prime Minister of the country can't decide whether or not climate change is real, how the hell am I supposed to know and how the hell am I suddenly meant to trust them? I mean you only have to look at the numbers when John Howard conceded that climate change was real and started making plans to put it in his own ETS and Kevin Rudd came up with a better one, you had two-thirds of the population, if not more, 80 per cent of people in some polls saying, yes, they absolutely accepted climate change. Now that position has completely reversed and it's because politicians on all sides, whether it's been the hard line opposition of the Greens to anything that wasn't their exact policy, whether it's been Julia Gillard changing her mind on it, whether it's been Rudd backing away from it, whether it's been the Liberal Party's knifing Malcolm Turnbull and putting in Tony Abbott, that sort of uncertainty makes the average layperson think, well, if our leaders don't think that this is important enough to get their shit together on, quite frankly, why the hell should I?

SUSAN RYAN: And the cost of it. The cost of it.

TONY JONES: Lenny Henry, is it a debate you're not having in the UK because both sides of politics have already decided?

LENNY HENRY: Well, I mean, climate change is very - people are exercised about it but, like here, they don't seem to know what to do about it. It's something, being of Jamaican heritage, I just know that when polar ice caps are floating past on Thames Bay, that's when the people are going to start saying "Hang on, there's something wrong here. I just saw a penguin in a mac asking for a cigarette." You know, that's when we're all going to start freaking out. I think you're right, until politicians get this issue by the throat, we're never going to see the end of it.

TONY JONES: Okay, let's move on. You're watching Q&A. You can send your questions via our website. The address is on the screen to work out how to do that.

LENNY HENRY: How long is this program?

TONY JONES: It's very long. The next question is a web question.

LENNY HENRY: I have been here for days. Are we going to get a meal? Is there going to be a meal?

TONY JONES: It's much shorter than the flight to Australia and you do get a meal afterwards.

LENNY HENRY: Oh, good.

OLDER WORKERS

TONY JONES: Angela Longsworth in Speers Point New South Wales asks: "Susan Ryan, with a need for older people to stay in the workforce to use their skills, what can you and the Government do to erase many employers picture of seniors as potential at-risk workers? "

SUSAN RYAN: Well, here comes science to help us. Medical science in this case. The latest medical science shows that older workers have fewer accidents than young workers. They are lower risk. Older workers take fewer sick days than younger workers, young people in the audience might be surprised to hear. Now, that is not what most employers think. Most employers think, oh, we want to get rid of our workers when they turn 50 and beyond because they will cost too much, they'll be going off on workers compensation and so forth. Science, medical science in this case, comes to the rescue. That is wrong. Now, what can do, governments, myself as Age Discrimination Commissioner, everyone here, the media, is just to challenge these stereotypes about older people. I mean we have a really crazy and most irrational situation at the moment where we're all most of us are living into our 70s and 80 and that is going up to our 90s very soon and yet we have attitudes that stem from the beginning of the 20th century when most people in Australia were dead before they were 60 and those who survived only 4% survived to be old enough to get the aged pension then. They died soon after. Now we have almost this extra life we're leading and yet the attitude of many employers is to say "Oh, Tony, have you turned 50? Better start pushing you out." So we all have to re-think that. For example, I meant, Tony. For example.

TONY JONES: Perfectly fine. Brian, how does this work with scientists? Did Einstein get better as he got older or did he make all his big breakthroughs when he was young?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: So most scientists make their big breakthroughs when they're quite young but then they have quite strong careers of sort of setting the stage for future research and helping provide guidance. So scientists love their job. They're very hard to get to retire at the best of times and so one of the issues we have is just how we deal with the change as people live longer and longer, because that means suddenly you end up with a generation where you can't hire anyone because you have gone from people living and retiring at 65 and suddenly you have people 75 or 80, so they're sort of a lost generation due to that. Eventually it will reach some equilibrium and everything will be fine again but in science, yeah, it's not a problem getting people to keep on going. The problem is quite the opposite to getting them to go onto the pension and...

SUSAN RYAN: Leave them there. Leave them there.

TONY JONES: Lenny, I hate to ask you this but...

LENNY HENRY: I love old people.

TONY JONES: ...were you funnier when you were younger?

LENNY HENRY: Yeah, I was. Yeah. I love old people. I think we need more old people out there doing stuff, don't you? Yes?

SUSAN RYAN: Yes. Yes. Yes.

LENNY HENRY: What you want is a very, very old paramedic. You know, you're lying on the floor, you're having trouble breathing and they're, (OLD MAN VOICE) "I'll help him, I'll give him the kiss of life. Hang on (DRAGS IN BREATH)." Then you have to give him the heart thing (POUNDS ON DESK WITH FISTS). We need old people out there. They need to be doing jobs because we don't want them driving cars basically.

SUSAN RYAN: Have a look at the statistics.

LENNY HENRY: Could you indicate? Could you just indicate when you're making a left? What's the matter with you? You just see the head, don't you, and the little gloves.

SUSAN RYAN: Oh, Lenny.

LENNY HENRY: They're going, "Where are we going? We're we going, Susan?"

SUSAN RYAN: He's reinforcing all the stereotypes.

LENNY HENRY: "Susan, where we going?" I'm 53.

SUSAN RYAN: You're breaking the law.

LENNY HENRY: God knows how old he is (POINTS AT TONY JONES). You, know, what are you talking about? We're young, we're vital, aren't we? Aren't we, Tony?

TONY JONES: We are, we're vital, yes. Yes.

LENNY HENRY: Aren't we? Remember I was saying earlier?

TONY JONES: You're scaring me again. This is the Age Discrimination Commissioner.

SUSAN RYAN: That's right. All the stereotypes, just reinforced.

TONY JONES: And you're proving what discrimination...

LENNY HENRY: I'm just joking.

SUSAN RYAN: I hope.

LENNY HENRY: I think the elders are incredibly important. My mum was very big in the church. She was 76 when she died but she was incredibly active in the community. I think there's a thing that older people can do in mentoring. I'm in touch with people who are in charge of this thing called Black Boys Can, where young black boys were failing at school until older people like uncles and aunties and granddads were coming in and mentoring and sitting in on class. It's really, really important having - I'm a comedian so I tell jokes but actually I think it's really vital and important, particularly in this strange society where there are so many absentee parents. We need somebody to stand up and say, well, look, you know if your dad is not here, I'll be your dad and I'll give you some good advice". So mentoring is very, very important so that's something that - also this whole thing of apprenticeships seems to be disappearing now with the mechanisation of industry. We need more people to pass on their experience to younger people, otherwise we're never going to get anywhere. You know, that's where a kind of elder-based society grows, you know. The older ones pass on their knowledge to the younger ones.

PRU GOWARD: Well, you've just dug yourself out of that grave.

TONY JONES: Yes, the two sides of Lenny Henry. Pru Goward, briefly on this?

PRU GOWARD: I don't want to be ageist in the sense that I don't want to be critical of young people, you know, because they have fantastic qualities but I think politics is one area where age actually helps because you get a bit of confidence, you get a bit of judgement, you've got a lot of life experience that you bring to bear. Well, we certainly do.

LENNY HENRY: Hang on, I'm just going to write some more jokes.

TONY JONES: We've got someone with their hand up in the audience there. I'll just bring him in.

AUDIENCE QUESTION

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. I was just wondering, I admit there is an ageist element in the community but isn't there an element against young people as well? I think that especially in the workplace, I mean, the legislation protects underpaying young people. It's not based on in any way on experience but it is based on their age and purely their age?

PRU GOWARD: No, I don't think there is.

JOE HILDEBRAND: It's because you're all lazy.

TONY JONES: You just ceased being young at that moment. Susan, do you want to respond to that?

SUSAN RYAN: Well, I guess you're referring to youth wages and there is a controversy around youth wages. I think the best position is you are paid for what you do, the rate for the job, but youth wages have come in and they're legal, as you know, although laws can be changed, but they are legal and they're brought in to give new workers, who happen to be young, the chance to get a job and learn a few things but after a very short period of time probably they should be assessed on what they can do.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's right.

SUSAN RYAN: I mean, I'm saying that an older worker, somebody at 65, should be judge odd what they can do, not on how many birthdays they have had...

TONY JONES: I'm going to have to interrupt because we're nearly out of time.

SUSAN RYAN: ...so I'm quite sympathetic to what you're saying.

TONY JONES: We've got time, just time, for one last question. It's from David Young.

SHAGGY DOG QUESTION

DAVID YOUNG: Hi, my question is for Lenny Henry. I'm in Gen Y and I can't remember the last time someone my age told a really lengthy joke with a narrative and yet it's something my grandparents will do, my parents and people of their generation. Something that really, you know, gets your imagination following the plot of the story and my question is do you think Gen Y has a short attention span and do you think...

LENNY HENRY: Is that some kind of gynaecological thing you're talking about? What is Gen Y? What are you talking about?

DAVID YOUNG: Generation Y.

LENNY HENRY: Speak English.

DAVID YOUNG: People born after the year 1983.

LENNY HENRY: Well, we're not interested in them. We're only paying them $360 a week. What do we care what they think? No, do you mean long jokes?

DAVID YOUNG: Long jokes?

LENNY HENRY: Because they take too long.

DAVID YOUNG: We'll that's partly my question.

LENNY HENRY: Comedians are like bam, bam. We live in a society where they change the channel if you take too long to get to the end of something. You know, you're Gen Y got bam, I don't like that joke. I'm going to watch that program with all the people and the man Joe 90 in the middle (POINTS TO TONY JONES). They want people who are just funny and, you know, long jokes have - they're great in the pub but they're not for when you're at work in Perth where they just had the biggest storm ever. You know, they want cheering up, so you better be funny.

DAVID YOUNG: Do you think it is an art form that needs to be brought back, something that needs to be passed on?

LENNY HENRY: Well, perhaps in after dinner speaking, but I think where it seems to be going as far as humour is concerned is more politics, more natural wit, less forced, you know, people want people who are funny minute by minute not for four hours later, you know. I've got a joke, do you want to hear it? I've got a joke.

DAVID TAYLOR: Yeah.

LENNY HENRY: A salesman knocks on a door. A child answers the door. He's about eight years old. He's wearing suspenders, stockings, he's got a cigarette in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other. The salesman says "Is your parents in?" and the kid goes "What do you think?"

TONY JONES: Okay. Okay.

LENNY HENRY: That's a good joke.

TONY JONES: That's a pretty good joke.

LENNY HENRY: That's a good joke.

TONY JONES: It's a short narrative joke.

LENNY HENRY: Sure but there's a story there.

TONY JONES: Pru Goward? Pru Goward, legend has it that you once told a very saucy joke to Bob Hawke moments before a live interview you were doing with him.

PRU GOWARD: Mm. I deny it.

TONY JONES: Do you recall this?

PRU GOWARD: I deny it.

LENNY HENRY: She's a joke denier.

PRU GOWARD: That's right. Well, probably.

TONY JONES: Can you remember how it went?

PRU GOWARD: No, not at all.

TONY JONES: Was it something to do with a...

PRU GOWARD: I never will.

TONY JONES: ...a tiger?

PRU GOWARD: No, ah, ah, ah, ah. We're almost out of time, Tony. That is awful of you. That is very naughty.

TONY JONES: It just happens I've got a very long memory for an old man.

PRU GOWARD: Yeah, you do. You do.

TONY JONES: No, Joe.

JOE HILDEBRAND: Yes. Well, you know, I'm obviously very close to this whole racism thing because everyone, particularly my friends in the white supremacist community, think that I'm Jewish and, of course, I can't tell them that I'm not because that's well, inherently anti-Semitic and also because I love Jewish jokes. All the best jokes are Jewish jokes and I have to be able to - if I tell them and everyone thinks I'm Jewish, you know, the board of deputies says "Oh, yes, he's clearly being satirical". So my favourite joke of all is a very simple one where the Jewish mother is running along the beach and she's just screaming at the top of her voice "Help, help, my son, the doctor, is drowning".

TONY JONES: Susan Ryan, did you ever tell a bawdy joke to Bob Hawke when he was Prime Minister?

SUSAN RYAN: No.

TONY JONES: Not in cabinet?

SUSAN RYAN: No.

TONY JONES: Or after cabinet?

SUSAN RYAN: No. No, I didn't.

TONY JONES: Did he tell any that you remember at this time of the evening?

SUSAN RYAN: He did but because no, I can't remember. I am like Pru.

PRU GOWARD: He did tell that very famous naughty joke but we won't...

SUSAN RYAN: Yeah, we won't go there. Hit the delete button, Pru, it's safer. We're grandmothers. We're grandmothers.

TONY JONES: Brian Schmidt, do you ever tell narrative jokes?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: I tend to tell stories of just things that happened to me. That's sort of the way I go but in terms of being able to tell a joke, I can't tell a joke, you know, for love or money.

TONY JONES: So you haven't heard the one about Tony Abbott, the climate sceptic and the cardinal?

BRIAN SCHMIDT: Not yet.

TONY JONES: There were only two of them.

LENNY HENRY: Nice work.

TONY JONES: If you can get it? Sadly that is all we have time for. Please thank the panel: Joe Hildebrand, Pru Goward, Lenny Henry, Brian Schmidt and Susan Ryan.

LENNY HENRY: (Indistinct) What a good show. Can we come back next week?

TONY JONES: You can come back next week. Come back whenever you like. Next week on Q&A Lenny Henry has volunteered to come back but unfortunately we haven't got room for him.

LENNY HENRY: I can't come back.

TONY JONES: The Whitlams singer/songwriter Tim Freedman; Minister for Sport and Multicultural Affairs Kate Lundy; Shadow Attorney General George Brandis and China-watching academic John Lee. Until next week's Q&A, goodnight.

LENNY HENRY: Good night.