Background Briefing

A spate of construction industry failures has put thousands of sub-contracting businesses at risk and stopped urgent public infrastructure projects. Two state governments are caught up in the collapses and are under pressure to bail them out and rescue the small sub-contractors. But that would set a costly precedent for major building projects across the country involving public-private-partnershi...

The defeat of Gaddafi brought the destruction of corrupt institutions but the power vacuum left by old cronies is being filled by new militias. Armed groups with NATO support helped remove the former dictator and they now threaten to undermine moves to democracy. Many Libyans fear a new era of corruption. The country’s vast oil wealth—and how it is distributed—will be critical in determining polit...

A doctor who treated residents at a rundown Sydney boarding house where six mentally ill residents died has been suspended, leaving authorities scrambling for replacement services.

One of Australia’s top music schools is in upheaval. Worsening debt and a very public fight over the direction of teaching has plunged the ANU School of Music into uncertainty and acrimony. Half the teaching staff will go. For some this is a battle between good and evil. For others it is an inevitable cultural shift, away from traditional classical music. Reporter: Di Martin.

Many stem cell therapies are illegal in Australia but that doesn't stop people travelling the world and spending small fortunes on these untested treatments.

There’s rising tension between African migrant communities and police in Victoria. The police say high rates of violent crime justify their stop and search methods. But young Africans accuse Victoria Police of racial profiling and brutality and there’s a mounting caseload of complaints against police, including a class action in the Federal Court. Reporter: Hagar Cohen.

It’s become who I am. If I didn’t do it anymore, I’d feel myself diminished. Why, despite the risks, do journalists choose to work in conflict zones? Is it safer to be a print or broadcast journalist? The latest technology allows reports to be sent immediately but it hasn’t made it easier to get the story. Despite advances, today’s wars are still ‘fought out in a kind of medieval darkness.’ Report...

A group of residents in Adelaide have opened a new front against the fast food giant. They’re trying to stop a McDonald’s restaurant opening opposite a school, arguing it will raise childhood obesity rates in the area. This may be the first time an urban planning court in Australia has looked beyond traffic, noise, litter and crime concerns, to consider the food environment. Reporter: Stan Correy....

A group of residents in Adelaide have opened a new front against the fast food giant. They’re trying to stop a McDonald’s restaurant opening opposite a school, arguing it will raise childhood obesity rates in the area. This may be the first time an urban planning court in Australia has looked beyond traffic, noise, litter and crime concerns, to consider the food environment. Reporter: Stan Correy....

Matthew Barclay, Saxon Bird and Robert Gatenby all died while competing at national surf championship events on the Gold Coast. Their deaths occurred in different years but at the same beach, and all in heavy surf conditions. Were their deaths preventable? Did Surf Life Saving Australia fail in its duty of care? There’s grief, anger and calls for a Royal Commission. Reporter: Wendy Carlisle

There’s growing evidence that lead poisoning shaves IQ points in children and has an insidious effect on behaviour. While experts debate safe exposure, a boom in home renovations could increase the risks. The recently flooded suburbs of Queensland are lead-dust hot spots but residents haven’t been warned. Reporter: Ian Townsend

Punch, kick, knee, elbow, choke, stomp, almost anything goes in a cage fight. It’s brutal, it’s legal, it’s popular and it’s a public safety time-bomb without adequate regulation. Reporter: Hagar Cohen

It began as a brutal no-holds-barred experiment and is now a multi-billion dollar fight industry. Cage fighting, or Mixed Martial Arts, is one of the fastest growing sports in the world, and especially in Australia. The sport’s main promoter says it’s part of our DNA and fighters will do anything to step into the cage. Reporter Hagar Cohen.

He’s a billionaire mining magnate, a real estate developer, football club saviour, a medical philanthropist, a professor, a political combatant and, officially, a National Living Treasure. How does he do it? Background Briefing investigates the big world and the big claims of Clive Palmer. Reporter: Stan Correy

In forty years Australia’s energy efficiency record has barely improved.  We’re a land of air con, power hungry industry, and fuel guzzling cars.  But electricity is no longer cheap, and we have to deal with carbon emissions.  Energy savings could deal with both.  Yet the message has been swept away by the political storm over a carbon price.  Reporter: Di Martin

Want to avoid big power bills in your next home? The federal government wants all homes for sale or rent to have an energy efficiency rating. We already rate new homes, and the system is weeding out some power guzzling designs. But there are major flaws as well. Some super efficient designs don’t rate—and some six star homes are still substandard. So how do you find an energy efficient home?  Repo...

In the 1970s, Joh Bjelke-Petersen told mining companies to build towns or they wouldn't be able to dig out the black gold. That's why towns like Moranbah were built. Forty years later, Moranbah has morphed into a big miners camp. House prices have gone through the roof, businesses are collapsing and families are leaving. Now even Labor voters are reminiscing about Joh. Reporter, Wendy Carlisle.

With ex Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic about to face a war crimes trial in The Hague, one former British commander, Bob Stewart, returns to the scenes of atrocities he witnessed in Bosnia and talks to the victims who’ve been left behind. Bob Stewart’s journey is emotional and it reveals how people are struggling with the daily reality of living beside neighbours who 20 years ago were...

Political parties constantly narrow their campaigns to focus on key marginal seats, and they have to do it more cheaply and efficiently. It’s becoming harder to convince wary voters and the parties are looking for more direct approaches. Electronic ‘micro-targeting’ is the new frontier.

On six Torres Strait islands, tidal flooding is washing away everything from building foundations to ancestral graves. Mosquitoes are thriving, with a serious malaria outbreak on one island. The state and federal governments are reluctant to invest in seawalls for protection and residents say they won’t leave.

How far and how fast can electric cars go? That’s what most buyers want to know as the big car-makers talk up battery power and zero emissions. Meanwhile in the US and Australia public debate about the future of the car industry is caught in the old politics of subsidies and jobs.

There is fierce scientific debate over whether the policy of annual prescribed burning in Victoria will reduce the risk of another Black Saturday that took so many lives in February 2009.

A chemical spill at the Orica plant near Newcastle in NSW put the company in the spotlight and raised serious questions about its safety procedures and what it told the neighbouring residents. The Orica leak also highlights major health and safety issues around hazardous industries located on the doorstep of residential suburbs like Stockton, and whether there are adequate laws in place.

French-made PIP implants were taken off the market two years ago after a massive fraud was discovered: instead of using medical grade silicon the factory was filling the implants with cheaper industrial silicon. Many of them have burst and been removed and over 100,000 women around the world are waiting to find out what the health consequences might be. In Australia the medical watchdog (the TGA)...

As the new school year begins more than 50,000 Australian children will be kept at home, to be taught by their parents. The homeschooling movement is growing rapidly but the majority of the arrangements are illegal, because the parents refuse to register with education departments. The authorities appear reluctant to prosecute and there is a lack of compelling evidence to show that homeschooling o...