Shows / Background Briefing
Background Briefing
Background Briefing is the ABC's flagship investigative journalism podcast. Its award-winning investigations and documentaries expose cover-ups, corruption, real-life mysteries, whistleblowing, crime, fraud and miscarriages of justice — often before these stories receive mainstream attention. The Background Briefing podcast brings you true stories not everyone will want you to hear, told by trusted reporters across Australia. This Australian podcast makes investigative journalism bingeable…
Episodes
- Background Briefing
Testing the teachers
It's a whiteboard jungle out there as educationalists and economists haggle over the surest way to get the best out of our kids. One proposal being considered…
- Background Briefing
Parental alienation
The anger and hurt of divorcing parents often spills over into custody and access to children. Accusations of child abuse are defended with claims of lies and…
- Background Briefing
Trade talk tensions
Despite optimism after the recent Davos meeting, the global free trade talks remain moribund. Last July, the developing world formed a new coalition, and…
- Background Briefing
Freight about to crash
As consumers demand more and more 'stuff' the impact on the freight industry will be enormous. The number of trucks on the roads will double in two decades…
- Background Briefing
Getting smart: the Access Card
The government is bringing in a new national card, called the Access Card. Everyone who uses Medicare, Centrelink, or any government service, will have one…
- Background Briefing
Bird flu: risks, laws and rights.
Scientists, lawyers, politicians, security forces—everyone's walking a fine line with avian flu, between the rights of the individual and the rights of the…
- Background Briefing
Coping by cutting
The incidence of self-harm is rising and there's a search for understanding and solutions. Princess Di admitted to it. As many as one in five young people are…
- Background Briefing
Trading quarantine
Whatever happened to quarantine? As an island nation, free from many of the pests and diseases that have devastated other parts of the world Australia has…
- Background Briefing
The greatest gift
Donating your body, or the body of a child, to medical research is a great gift to mankind. Most of you can be recycled: your eyes, your skin, your bone or…
- Background Briefing
The Suez Crisis 1956
Sir Robert Menzies was at the centre of the Suez crisis - one of the great failures of western political history. He was sent into negotiate with Nasser, but…
- Background Briefing
Renovating Muslim Australia
It's been a tough year for Australian Muslims. The Hilali controversy has exposed deep divisions in the Sydney Muslim community - between different religious…
- Background Briefing
Getting smart: the Access Card
The government is bringing in a new national card, called the Access Card. Everyone who uses Medicare, Centrelink, or any government service, will have one…
- Background Briefing
Celebrities and Africa
Madonna, Angelina and Brad, and countless other rich celebrities seem to be taking the missionary position with small countries such as Malawi. There are…
- Background Briefing
Richard Dawkins and God
The eminent scientist Richard Dawkins puts forward, in a no holds barred manner, the arguments again religion - be it Muslim, Christian, Jewish or any of the…
- Background Briefing
Private equity - the purest capitalism
The business world is agog as the private equity consortiums storm the globe with their trillions, buying and selling and skimming fees. They've been called…
- Background Briefing
Europe in the world
Europe, as a union of nations, could emerge as an important force in world affairs. Chris Patten, now Lord Patten of Barnes, is one of the most influential men…
- Background Briefing
Electric shocks
The cost of electricity will soar in coming years - and the biggest culprit is the air conditioner. In South Australia, 90 percent of homes use them. At…
- Background Briefing
Perils of peacekeeping
It's well known that soldiers can be traumatized by war but peacekeeping can be just as stressful with its own horrors. Australian veterans of the peacekeeping…
- Background Briefing
America's image abroad
America's image and support across the world is low, and it's a concern for big business and policy makers. A panel of young people discuss why this has…
- Background Briefing
Alternative money spinners
They are called herbal medicines, or complementary, or alternative - but many of them are not useful and may be harmful. At the very least you are likely to be…
- Background Briefing
Soul searching about welfare
The churches and welfare agencies are finding it uncomfortable to dance to the government's tune. But they need the money. In the case of the Catholic Church…
- Background Briefing
The Suez Crisis 1956
Sir Robert Menzies was at the centre of the Suez crisis - one of the great failures of western political history. He was sent into negotiate with Nasser, but…
- Background Briefing
The greatest gift
Donating your body, or the body of a child, to medical research is a great gift to mankind. Most of you can be recycled: your eyes, your skin, your bone or…
- Background Briefing
Regaining confidence in western culture
Commentators Mark Steyn and Owen Harries debate the battle of ideas going on inside western cultures. Has the west lost its nerve? Recorded at the Centre for…
- Background Briefing
Australia and the nuclear renaissance
Nuclear is back. Australia, with its abundant ore and 'good guy' status could become a key member of the uranium enricher's club. But what would the neighbours…
- Background Briefing
Loot: real money in virtual worlds
Virtual worlds are flourishing as millions of online players move in to set up their virtual lives. There are fortunes to be made, and there are real world…
- Background Briefing
A narrative for a long war
Opinion shapers in Washington worry that they are losing the war of ideas with the Jihadists. But are they? Reporter: Stan Correy
- Background Briefing
The rise of the carbon traders
Financial markets have responded to climate change by buying and selling greenhouse gases. This is the carbon trade, and business leaders are confident it will…
- Background Briefing
Australia and the South Pacific: roles and responsibilities
When Australia's role in the South Pacific is raised, the terms 'arc of instability' and 'failed states' will commonly follow. As the dominant nation in the…
- Background Briefing
Aid in Afghanistan
Returning to Kabul, four years after Patch Adams led a clown doctor mission there, Australian clown Jean-Paul Bell and reporter Gerald Tooth are struggling…
- Background Briefing
Coping by cutting
The incidence of self harm is rising and there's a search for understanding and solutions. Princess Di admitted to it. As many as 1 in 5 young people are…
- Background Briefing
Bird flu: risks, laws and rights.
Scientists, lawyers, politicians, security forces—everyone's walking a fine line with avian flu, between the rights of the individual and the rights of the…
- Background Briefing
Growth of the Aerotropolis
Worldwide, the airport is no longer somewhere to catch a plane. It is a commercial city growing fast under special conditions. The services and shops are for…
- Background Briefing
Doctors without Borders
They operate in 70 countries, and give medical aid to those who need it most. The Médecins Sans Frontières international president is Australian Dr…
- Background Briefing
Water in India
The cost of boom times in India is a surge in demand for everything - and top of the list is water. Industry, agriculture, households in middle class suburbs…
- Background Briefing
Workers of the world
Whether you call them guest workers or skilled immigrants, they're part of a globalising workforce. Over 700,000 foreigners work in Australia - from CEOs to…
- Background Briefing
Francis Fukuyama: No longer neocon
The man who wrote The End of History? is now disenchanted with American foreign policy. Fukuyama remains a conservative, but has strong views on what has gone…
- Background Briefing
Windale: A work in progress
Not long ago Windale was the most disadvantaged postcode in southeast Australia. Now it is beginning to turn itself around. It has had startling successes in…
- Background Briefing
When Castro dies
America has plans for Cuba after Castro, including the use of Guantanamo Bay. In Cuba, many people believe their world will not change. Others say it must, and…
- Background Briefing
Bolton at the United Nations
John R Bolton may be called 'the ugly American' and be widely disliked, yet his pivotal role as US Ambassador to the UN makes him extraordinarily powerful and…
- Background Briefing
Poor health in China
Privatisation of health care in China has failed, and Beijing knows there may be social and political unrest as a result. The rich can buy good care - but for…
- Background Briefing
Clouds over Queensland
Queensland has been having the fastest growth in population in the developed world, and is second only to Phoenix in the money that growth is bringing in. And…
- Background Briefing
Elusive Exclusive Brethren
They shun contact with the world. Not just with technology, books, radio and TV, but also other people. They do not vote, because voting interferes with God's…
- Background Briefing
Selling China: The Wal-Mart Effect
The worlds biggest retail company, Wal-Mart, is China's fourth largest trading partner, and the result is one of the most dramatic economic shifts since the…
- Background Briefing
Labor in Crisis
There is something seriously wrong with the Labor Party. Membership is shrinking and the number of fully active members is thought to be as low as 1,000 people…
- Background Briefing
Women Who Transgress
Schapelle, Pauline and Lindy each became a lighting rod for our anxieties about motherhood, infanticide, deserts, drugs, Bali bombings, or the splintering of…
- Background Briefing
J. K. Galbraith
Adviser to presidents, influential and respected economist, J.K. Galbraith is now 97. He has 52 PhDs and has written 48 books, and his name attracts countless…
- Background Briefing
Music of the Blogospheres
There's yet another paradigm shift in new technology — Podcasting, which cuts out the advertisers, commercial DJs, and program directors. Young people order…
- Background Briefing
Sticks and Stones: The Killing of Leigh Leigh
Seven years ago, a 14-year old girl named Leigh Leigh was violently assaulted, raped and murdered at a beach party in Newcastle. Background Briefing revisits…
- Background Briefing
On the road with Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich is the speaker of the US Congress, which makes him third in line for the presidency. He is a controversial figure who has put forward policies…
- Background Briefing
The plutonium factor
Japan is planning to produce a series of fast-breeder nuclear reactors that require the importation of nuclear materials by sea.
- Background Briefing
The Rio Earth Summit 1992
It's the last day of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The agenda has been finalised, the convention signed, or not signed as the case may be, and the world…