Background Briefing

The government's troubled debt recovery system has caused an uproar. Thousands of welfare recipients have been hit with debts which they have no idea how they were calculated. Colin Cosier investigates.

An Australian town rises up against homeless people who set up a tent shantytown at the local showground. Bronwyn Adcock reports on a big city problem that's come to Nowra on the NSW south coast.

The strategy to fix the Murray-Darling hangs in the balance as states and irrigators squabble over returning more water back to the river.

As Asian countries crack down on surrogacy, it's booming here in Australia. The rules say a surrogate can't be paid, but desperation is driving some people to flout the law.

The 13-year-old Brisbane schoolboy committed suicide after years of being bullied at schools for being different. David Lewis investigates did his school let him down?

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 Up to a third of those deaths might be preventable, but experts say fatalistic and outdated attitudes are holding back progress.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.

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.

Summer series: The women who spoke out against a protected paedophile in their midst were trolled and threatened by their own community. Their story is extraordinary.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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?

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.

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.

It's been a year of wild weather and farmers are asking is climate change biting harder and faster than predicted?

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.

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'.

You might not know it, but the Greens have a right wing. Mind you, they deny it. Inside the split in the Greens.

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.

How do three casuals in Perth get to decide on a wages deal at the CUB brewery in Melbourne?

Disenchanted and feeling left behind one in four voters deserted the old parties. Reporter David Lewis investigates the Brexit factor