Background Briefing is investigative journalism at its finest, exploring the issues of the day and examining society in a lively on-the-road documentary style.
Latest Programs
Sunday 29 Jan 2017
Summer series: Six babies are born still every day in Australia. Up to a third of those deaths might be preventable, but experts say fatalistic and outdated attitudes are holding back progress. Hager Cohen investigates.
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Sunday 22 Jan 2017
Summer series: The death of a young indigenous boy sparked a town riot at the court house, and the search for answers as to why he died. Sarah Dingle reports.
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Sunday 4 Dec 2016
Summer series: It was the student subsidy that was too good to be true. Students were the losers when billions were rorted by cowboys who spotted a government scheme that was just too easy to rip-off.
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Sunday 27 Nov 2016
Doctor shopping. Delaying vital medical care. Digging into your private records. When it comes to your mental health, are insurers playing fair? Natasha Mitchell investigates.
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Sunday 20 Nov 2016
Some of CSIRO's top women astronomers are quitting due to a dysfunctional workplace that they say protects harassers and punishes them instead. It's not just a loss for Australia's leading science organisation, but an appalling loss to the nation. Hagar Cohen investigates.
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Sunday 13 Nov 2016
US president-elect Donald Trump is on record saying the JSF is 'not a very good plane'. Reporter Sarah Dingle investigates one of our most expensive and troubled defence acquisitions ever.
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Sunday 6 Nov 2016
When a massive storm ripped through South Australia the state went into 'system black'. With the blackout barely hours old it became a political football. David Lewis investigates.
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Sunday 30 Oct 2016
When a 14-year-old Indigenous boy was allegedly run over and killed by a 55-year-old white man driving a ute, a WA mining town erupted. Sarah Dingle investigates death and desperation in Kalgoorlie.
(Warning: This audio download contains strong language.)
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Sunday 23 Oct 2016
It's the murder trial that split Tasmania. But is Sue Neill-Fraser innocent or is she - as the jury found - a calculating, manipulative liar who murdered her husband?
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Sunday 16 Oct 2016
Is Chinese soft power curtailing academic freedom in our universities? And why are Chinese students afraid of speaking out against the Chinese communist party? Hagar Cohen investigates.
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Sunday 9 Oct 2016
The eviction of social housing tenants from Sydney's CBD is nearly complete. Heritage, history and the wellbeing of an ageing population has been traded off to build more social housing elsewhere.
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Sunday 2 Oct 2016
It's been a year of wild weather and farmers are asking is climate change biting harder and faster than predicted?
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Sunday 25 Sep 2016
Children and carers are trying to get their hands on the assets of elderly and vulnerable people who still have many years of life ahead of them. As David Lewis found out, the perpetrators often get away with it.
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Sunday 18 Sep 2016
In 1979 an Adelaide lawyer was shot and his body stuffed in a freezer with frozen food. His boyfriend was found guilty. Now he's appealing that and now suggests the killing was linked to the infamous 'family murders'.
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