ABC1's blog

Q&A AT MELBOURNE WRITERS’ FESTIVAL - MONDAY 30 AUGUST LIVE (AEST) AT 9.35PM ON ABC1

Next Monday, Q&A heads to the Melbourne Writers’ Festival for a unique evening of literate political debate and analysis. Joining host Tony Jones live (AEST) on the panel will be:

- Malcolm Fraser, former Australian Prime Minister

- Jessica Rudd, author of the novel Campaign Ruby and daughter of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

- John Keane, Professor of Politics at the University of Sydney and author of several books including The Life and Death of Democracy

- Chris Berg, columnist and Research Fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs

- Christine Wallace, political journalist and biographer, currently working on a biography of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Members of the public can get involved in Q&A in a variety of ways:

Go to abc.net.au/qanda to register to be part of the live Q&A studio audience;

The website is also the place to go to submit questions, and to upload video questions;

· Viewers can also contribute to the discussion via Q&A’s Twitter highlight’s feed, using #qanda and submit video and written questions via the website;

· And follow @abcqanda on Twitter to receive first-hand updates about the program and panel members.

FOUR CORNERS: CRIME INCORPORATED - Mon 30 Aug at 8.30pm on ABC1

“The general public do need to know… the breadth and the scope of organised crime and the damage it’s doing to them.” – Expert in criminal intelligence

If you ask Australia’s top criminal intelligence analysts they will tell you organised crime has changed. Gangs no longer rely on geographic or ethnic connections. Crime now is trans-national and cross-cultural.

Modern crime bosses have also changed. Now they are like the chief executive officers of major multinational corporations with the organisational skills to match. Their job is to bring together people with expertise in procurement, transport and importation of drugs and other illegal cargo. Once the goods are delivered in Australia they are then distributed by another arm of “the company” through major supply chains.

This week Four Corners details the activities of these powerful networks. The program reveals how these networks are able to function despite attention from the police. It shows how officials on the waterfront and other points of authority are paid off to assist the importation of drugs and the chemicals needed to make them. As a result, the networks imported and sold drugs worth millions of dollars. The program also reveals the identity of the men involved, the network they created and the police operation that targeted them.

“Crime Incorporated” goes to air on Monday 30th August at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is replayed on Tuesday 31st August at 11.35pm. The program can also be viewed in the same week on Friday at 10.00pm and Saturday at 2.30 pm on ABC News 24

Also available online at abc.net.au/iview and at abc.net.au/4corners.

Australian Story: Jack Heath on ABC1 – Monday August 30 at 8pm

Driven by personal tragedy, a former diplomat abandons his political ambition,s to confront a pandemic affecting young lives.

6:30pm – Monday, August 30 on ABC1

This week on Talking Heads, Peter Thompson’s guest is Fiona McIntosh, an author who has become something of a superstar in the fantasy fiction world.

McIntosh only started writing a decade ago. She was 39 years old and having a mid-life crisis, when one day at the dentist she noticed an ad for a summer writing course in Hobart. Leaving her husband and twin boys at home, McIntosh headed to the Apple Isle, armed with a loose idea for a fantasy book.

By the time she was 40, she had written Betrayal, the first book of a fantasy trilogy, and had a publisher’s contract.

Since then there’ve been more than a dozen adult novels and five children’s books, many of them bestsellers internationally.

Her most recent book Fields of Gold reveals something of the extraordinary lives of McIntosh’s two grandfathers… both great adventurers and both the keepers of intriguing secrets.

8:30pm – Sunday, August 29 on ABC1

Gracie Fields (Jane Horrocks) was Britain’s darling – the singing, funny, working-class film star whose boundless energy, roguish cheerfulness and ironic songs symbolised the spirit of 1930s England. When she fell ill in 1939, her popularity was such that the streets outside the hospital had to be lined with straw as the milling crowd’s footsteps disturbed the other patients.

This film begins at the height of Gracie’s fame. After nearly dying following an operation and three-day coma, Gracie awakes. Hollywood director Monty Banks (Tom Hollander), who has directed her in her most successful films, is at her bedside. Told by doctors that she must take a break, Gracie books a holiday to Capri and asks Monty to come with her.

But on the day she and Monty are due to leave, the Second World War breaks out. Ill, exhausted, but as enthusiastic as ever, Gracie volunteers to do her duty to her fans and country, touring France, singing to the troops to raise money to pay for Spitfires, leaving Monty trailing in her wake.

When Monty finally plucks up the courage to ask Gracie to marry him, it should mark the start of the rest of their lives together. But then Italy declares support for Germany, making Italian Monty the enemy. Gracie must choose between loyalty to her husband and loyalty to her country.

Starring the internationally renowned Jane Horrocks as the singing, laughing, heart-breaking Gracie Fields, this is a romantic comedy steeped in warm wit, dramatic dilemma-filled emotion and vivacious, irrepressible energy.

7:30pm – Sunday, August 29 on ABC1

Insects are the most diverse animal group on the planet. The key to their success is their unique ability to reshape themselves. They possess fearsome weapons, yet can display surprising tenderness and sophisticated behaviour.

Take to the skies with millions of monarch butterflies in Mexico; see a beetle spray boiling chemicals at its enemies; witness giant bees fight to the death over females; join the marching columns of grass cutter ants; and spend a jeopardy-filled day with damselflies.

Key animal characters: � Monarch butterflies � Damselflies � Grass cutter ants � Dawson’s bees � Bombardier beetles

5:30pm – Sunday, August 29 on ABC1

This week on Art Nation, presenter, and an artist himself, Reko Rennie heads to Darwin for the 27th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards to find out who wins the prestigious $40,000 major prize. Reko is interested to see that as a result of the increasing number of Indigenous artists using new media in their art practice, a New Media Award has been added to the other much sought after awards, these include the General Painting Award, the Bark Painting Award, the Work on Paper Award and the Wandjuk Marika Memorial 3D Award.

Art Nation also catches up with Jonsi the enigmatic lead singer of Icelandic band Sigur Ros.

Currently touring Australia with his partner musician and visual artist Alex Sommers, Jonsi talks about his new solo album Go and his love of the natural world. Inspired by visual art, landscapes and the people of Iceland, Jonsi creates arresting and compelling sounds with his unmistakable voice.

The Guilty Pleasures segment sees none other than Liz Ann McGregor, Director of the MCA. Liz Ann confesses the shocking and amusing story of how her love affair with literature went horribly wrong. She’s a crime fiction addict – but not just any crime fiction – it seems the darker, the steamier, the more gruesome and macabre the story the better.

Closing the program is a performance in the Art Nation studio by Skipping Girl Vinegar, the popular Melbourne-based indie rock band, named after ‘Audrey’ the Skipping Girl Vinegar sign, located in Abbotsford, Victoria.

Art Nation will be repeated on ABC2 – Sunday, August 29 at 7.00pm.

On Insiders this Sunday, Barrie Cassidy interviews the Opposition Leader Tony Abbott amid negotiations with Independent MP’s about who’ll form the next government.

One of the key independents, Tony Windsor, will also be a guest.

On the panel: The Australian Financial Review’s Laura Tingle, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Lenore Taylor and freelance political writer Kerry-Anne Walsh.

And Mike Bowers talks pictures with The Courier Mail’s Sean Leahy.

Insiders: 9am Sunday morning on ABC1 and simulcast at 9am AEST on ABC News 24.

9:20pm – Saturday, August 28 on ABC1

In this smart and fascinating series we see if love can conquer Six’s suspicions about village life where all else has failed.

When Six (Jim Caviezel) is approached by The Village ‘Modern Love Bureau’ who want to find him a love match, he dismisses this as nonsense but when he is shown a picture of his potential date, 4-15, (Hayley Atwell) she is clearly Lucy, the woman Six remembers from his last night in New York.

Six meets up with 4-15 convinced that she/Lucy is the clue to how he got to The Village and how he can get out.

However, in The Village 4-15 denies all knowledge of Lucy or even of the possibility of another place. She is blind in The Village and says that no one knows why, but doctors put it down to a traumatic incident that she has since repressed.

Six is sure that this must be connected with her life in the other world. Six falls deeply in love with her and his determination to get the truth out of her is soon secondary to his physical need to be with her.

Meanwhile, inexplicable holes have appeared in The Village. The taxi-driver 147 and his wife find one at the end of their garden and are devastated when their little daughter falls down the hole before they have got round to reporting it. They are even more frantic when the hole disappears as quickly and mysteriously as it appeared. Six tries to help get answers from Two (Sir Ian McKellen) but he is distracted by his growing passion for 4-15.

When Six announces that he is going to marry 4-15, 313 (Ruth Wilson) finds it hard to be happy for him. She reveals that his love for 4-15 isn’t real. Two has been drugging him at night and blackmailing 313 into doing ‘Gene Symmetry Therapy’ – a process which involves giving 4- 15 and Six each other’s genes so that they are more and more attracted to each other.

8:30pm – Saturday, August 28 on ABC1

After police are notified that a heavily pregnant woman Jane Connor (Leah Muller) has gone missing, PCs Leon Taylor (Dominic Power) and Nate Roberts (Ben Richards) discover her car. When they search the area they find her lying nearby badly injured – apparently knocked down by her own car.

PC Taylor, still traumatised after finding a child’s body the previous day, is distraught about Jane Connor’s unborn baby being in danger, and both Insp. Smith (Alex Walkinshaw) and Sgt. Stone (Sam Callis) keep an eye on him.

Blood found inside the car indicates that one of the carjackers was injured, and a check of local hospitals leads police to Jodie Knox (Georgia Brown). Jodie says her boyfriend Ashley Johnson (Joshua Osei) was the person who drove the car.

Police discover Jane Connor’s purse in Johnson’s bedroom, and he is brought in for questioning. He denies he was there, but the emotionally charged PC Taylor is determined to make him confess, and a confrontation occurs. However, Johnson is allowed to leave, and, disobeying orders to go home, PC Taylor follows him and is assaulted.

But Johnson’s guilt is in doubt when his shoe size doesn’t match the print found on the scene, so police decide that Jodie Knox is lying. As they put together the pieces and realise who she might be protecting, PC Taylor takes matters into his own hands.