Four Corners – Series 2007
Episodes
The Culture
It's blokey and it's bolshie, the envy of other unions, with near blanket coverage of its workforce. For decades it has sought to influence election campaigns, dragged concessions out of fearful governments and fought ferociously for its members.
Battling the Booze
You don't have to be sitting on a street corner urinating in your trousers and shadow boxing to be a drunk. I'm living proof of that... - Ian
The Denial Machine
For years the global warming debate has swirled like a firestorm. Science has been tossed about in a tornado of spin from doomsayers and doubters, deep green activists and fossil fuel lobbyists.
The Road to Return
Who's tough on crime? It's an election season ritual: the law and order auction to see which party will put more cops on the streets or increase sentences or build more jails.
Firestorm
Across southern Australia, fire chiefs are anxiously waiting for the cool draughts of autumn to extinguish another stress-filled season of sparks, flare-ups and rushed responses.
You Only Live Twice
Our world might be getting smaller, thanks to technology, but virtual worlds and games are booming. Millions of people venture daily into these new and constantly evolving landscapes where they can conquer mythical armies, slay dragons and embark on other fantastical quests.
A Hidden Life
In May 2005, citizens of Spokane, USA, woke to startling news about their city's mayor, Jim West. The outwardly conservative Republican, who had pushed legislation barring gay teachers from public schools, had whiled away his private hours trawling for young men on an Internet chatroom, the Spokesman-Review newspaper alleged. West reportedly abused his office by offering internships to lure them into more intimate relationships.
David Hicks' Story
With a wispy moustache and long, lank hair, it was a different David Hicks who just faced US military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. No longer the clean-cut young man smiling familiarly out of old family snaps - and no longer protesting his innocence.
Treechange
Australia is planting trees. After years of debate about logging old growth forests what could seem more sensible or more worthy? And yet a national quarrel has developed about tree plantations, a quarrel that Chris Master discovers is quietly dividing rural communities and members of the Coalition Government.
Earth, Wind and Fire
Picture a windswept hillside lined with slender white skyscrapers, each crowned by a giant whirring rotor longer than a jumbo jet. Or a swathe of desert covered by a sea of mirrors drawing power from the sun.
Painting the Mind
Imagine surviving a massive brain injury, then waking up in hospital to discover your personality has completely transformed.
The Dark Arts
"Well mate... let me just say this to you. I mean you wouldn't know this but I'm not a f...... good enemy to have..." (Brian Burke on the telephone)
Dr Rosanna Capolingua
A confronting report in which fit and healthy elderly Australians reveal plans to take their own lives before they lose their independence. Is this a new fact of life in greying Australia?
Mississippi Cold Case
One spring day in 1964, Charles Moore and Henry Dee were hitchhiking in rural Mississippi. The two black men were picked up by the Ku Klux Klan, tortured, locked in a car boot and driven to Louisiana, then chained to an engine block and dropped alive into the Mississippi River.
A Private Affair
Nick off, it's not for sale!... Qantas shareholder's answer to the takeover offer.
Torture
"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." (Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Ghost Prisoners
Shackled, gagged and blindfolded, they are bundled on to spy planes, spirited to Third World capitals and dumped in prison hellholes. There they face repeated interrogations that typically include prolonged sessions of torture, crudely inflicted, unimaginably endured.
Tough Calls
"We run an absolute dictatorship and that's what's going to drive this transformation and deliver results... If you can't get the people to go there and you try once and you try twice... then you just shoot 'em and get them out of the way... " - Telstra Chief Operations Officer Greg Winn (at a May business meeting)
The Home Front
While politicians clash noisily over global warming and how to fight it, millions of Australians are trying modestly to cut their energy use, to be a small part of a big solution.
Forward Base Afghanistan
Like Star Wars figures beamed back to the 17th century, Australia's hi-tech, lethally-equipped soldiers cut a surreal presence as they cautiously patrol the baking dustbowl of southern Afghanistan, drawing just casual glances from turbaned tribesmen and nomadic herders.
Real Spooks
Across Britain counter terrorism forces are gathering evidence against the planners of the failed car bomb plots in London and Glasgow. The forensic information gleaned from the vehicles and the arrests in Britain and Australia should allow them to piece together how the conspiracy was formed.
The Cape Experiment
"If they don't take responsibility then we will step in. We want the system to work so that when people don't take responsibility we're able to step in ... you could lose your freedom if you don't abide by the conditions." Noel Pearson.
For The Children's Sake
"My baby was the last thing that I thought about until I pulled that needle out of my arm." Sharon, drug user.
Grist to the Mill
It started with dinner in a Hobart restaurant. The head of Tasmania's biggest timber company and the then Deputy Premier chatted about future plans for the forest industry in Tasmania. Four years on the Tasmanian Parliament is about to decide whether to give the nod to a $1.7 billion giant pulp mill on the banks of the Tamar River north of Launceston.
The Behaviour Business
An angry child, lashing out at the world, struggling at school, labelled a 'problem'. The desperate parents, looking for help, hoping that one day their child will have a normal life. This is the traumatic world of families living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
EYES WIDE OPEN
When was the last time you had a good night's sleep? Are you one of the million-plus Australians who spend their nights watching the minutes tick by, dreading the morning, knowing you'll be exhausted? Some say it feels like dragging a piano around, an awful deadening weight.
Friends of God
"I don't think you can win without them. And I think if they're unified, you'll lose if they go against you. John Kerry learned that. Al Gore learned that and Hillary will learn that in 2008. The church is the only hope for the recovery of this country. And this is a do or die thing with us; we are not playing games with it. We are absolutely planning to take this nation back for God." The late Reverend Jerry Falwell.
First Do No Harm
How do you know if you can trust your doctor? How do you know if they have the skills to heal you? How do you find out, what all too often, the medical profession already knows: who to go to and who to avoid? It's been the ultimate insider's secret, the doctor you would never let near your own family or friends.
When Kids Get Life
The crimes are shocking, the perpetrators alarmingly young. A 15-year-old who brutally murdered his parents; a 15-year-old participant in a fatal car-jacking; a 17-year-old who killed a schoolmate in a robbery gone wrong. Prosecutors have labelled them "the worst of the worst". All three of them will spend the rest of their lives in jail as a result of mandatory sentencing laws.
Hokey Pokie
"There's no country in the world that has gambling in clubs and pubs in the way that we do in Australia." Professor Jan McMillen.
Mortgage Meltdown
"When the US sneezes the rest of the world gets the cold."
Afghanistan Unveiled
The pictures were shocking. A woman swathed in a blue burqa, stumbling across the ground, barely able to see. Forced to her knees, then shot in the head. Publicly executed in a soccer stadium. Punishment, Taliban style.
The Trials of Dr Haneef
On Saturday June 30 an explosives-filled Jeep Cherokee careered into Glasgow's airport terminal. Images of the flaming car and one of the attackers, Kafeel Ahmed, grotesquely burnt and struggling on the ground, sent a shudder of fear through Britain.
Burma's Secret War
Democracy will just have to wait. The rallies have been crushed and the protesters are in captivity, in hiding, or fleeing the country. Military vehicles sweep Burma's main city Rangoon blaring menace from loudspeakers: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests."
The Brethren Express
They don't vote and they repudiate any organised role in politics. It's God's call, they say, whether governments stand or fall.
The Real Godfather
They called him The Tractor. "He mowed people down," explained an informant.
Flying Blind
"If you think about all the planes that are available as being puppies in a litter, the Super Hornet is the runt." US aviation analyst James Stevenson
Tracking the Intervention
After decades of hollow promises, it was time to cut the talk. In Canberra's eyes the rolling scandal of child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities demanded action, swift and certain.
The Undecided
In the political marketplace, their votes are gold dust. People like Matthew, Nicole, Mark, Deanne and George will determine who governs Australia after November 24. All are marginal seat voters. In recent elections all have gone with John Howard.