Four Corners

FOUR CORNERS: OVERDOSE: THE NEXT FINANCIAL CRISIS - MONDAY 23 AUGUST AT 8.30PM ON ABC1

When the world’s financial bubble blew, the solution was to lower interest rates and pump trillions of dollars into the sick banking system. On the face of it this seemed the only way to deal with impending disaster, but was it?

“The solution is the problem, that’s why we had a problem in the first place,” Economics Nobel laureate Vernon Smith says. For him, the Catch 22 is self-evident. Interest rates have been at rock bottom for years, and governments are running out of fuel to feed the economy. He asks:

“The governments can save the banks, but who can save the governments?”

Forecasts predict many countries will see their debt reach 100 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product in the near future. Greece and Iceland have already crumbled, who will be next?

The storm that would rock the world began in the United States when congress pushed the idea of home ownership for all, propping up those who couldn’t make the mortgage down payments. The market even coined the term NINA loans, meaning “No Income, No Assets, No Problem!”

Enter FannieMae and FreddieMac, privately owned, government sponsored mortgage houses. “Want that vacation? Wanna buy some new clothes? Use your house as a piggie bank!” People began to ask:  “why earn money to pay for your home when you can make money just living in it?” With the government covering all losses, you’d have been a fool not to borrow.

The years of growth had been a continuous party. But when the punchbowl ran dry, instead of letting investors go home to nurse their hangovers as usual, the Federal Reserve just filled it up again with phoney money. For analyst Peter Schiff, the consequence of the spending binge was crystal clear:

“We’re in so much trouble now because we got drunk on all that Federal Government alcohol.”

If he and other experts are right, then the worst is yet to come as governments struggle to pay the debt they now owe as a result of their bank bailouts and bad investment decisions.

“OVERDOSE” goes to air on 23rd August at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is repeated on 24th August at 11.35pm. It can also be seen in the same week at 10.15pm Friday and 1.15pm Saturday on ABC News 24. It will also be available on iView and abc.net.au/4corners.

FOUR CORNERS: HEART OF DARKNESS – Monday 26 July at 8.30pm on ABC1

Twenty-three-year-old Judith Wanga grew up in London and is proud to be British. But Judith was born thousands of miles away in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Twenty years ago, with the country in turmoil and fearing for their daughter’s safety, her parents sent her to live with relatives in Britain.

Now Judith is going back to Congo for the first time. She wants to understand the childhood she missed and find the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of her life.

Judith quickly discovers two things: despite the fact the civil war in Congo has officially ended, in the east of the country a bitter conflict between Congolese troops and rebels continues. She also discovers that women across Congo have a very different status to women in Western countries.

After the reunion with her parents, Judith visits eastern Congo, an area that has been devastated by conflict. There she learns that rape is an epidemic.  Judith meets a radio journalist who conducts a one person campaign to expose the extent of the violence directed at women. She hears the stories of those who have been attacked and meets the children who are born as a result of the rapes.

As well as meeting the victims of this conflict, Judith also talks to some of the perpetrators. She meets a young woman who was forced to join the military to survive. The woman reveals how she was forced to kill and how she fled the armed forces only to find herself without money to support her child. Now she supports herself by working as a prostitute.

Amidst all the horror, Judith also glimpses a few signs of hope. She visits a centre that has been built to provide a sanctuary for women who have been assaulted, called ‘City of Joy’. In another part of Congo she meets the young men and women who carry out dramatic performances exposing the brutality they have seen and experienced.

On discovering the harsh realities of her homeland, Judith begins to understand why her parents sent her away as a child. Her experience also makes her determined to return home to Britain and encourage awareness of the plight of her country, and the women forced to endure unimaginable suffering.

HEART OF DARKNESS goes to air on the 26th July at 8.30 pm ABC 1. It is replayed on 27th July at 11.35 pm. Also available on ABC iView.

FOUR CORNERS: A DOG ACT – MONDAY 19 JULY AT 8.30PM ON ABC1

It was almost a year ago, just after sunrise in Alice Springs on July 25th 2009, that an Aboriginal man was killed by a group of white youths travelling in a white twin cab ute. As soon as the police arrested and identified the five men, emotions were unleashed in Alice Springs and race relations came under the spotlight.

As the editor of the local newspaper told Liz Jackson: “(It was) huge, huge. I mean once the arrests were made, you got a sense that Alice Springs spoke about nothing else.”

Another local said: “The hardest thing is knowing that this could happen in this town, in this community, not only that but to find out that they were local young men was very, very distressing.”

For the first time, families of the victim and the young men who are now in jail, speak to Liz Jackson as they struggle to come to terms with the devastating aftermath of a shocking killing.

“Where’s my son? My son had a future and he didn’t get the chance to have that future,” – Therese Ryder

For Heather Swain, nothing could prepare her for what her son was about to tell her: “Don’t stress Mum. Exactly this, don’t stress Mum, but I’ve been charged with murder. Imagine my reaction, you know, was pretty hard.”

Witnesses to the killing also speak for the first time, as they attempt to understand how this could have happened.

Four Corners also gains exclusive access to police records of interviews and re-enactments that document a confronting crime.

Join Liz Jackson as she investigates “A Dog Act” on ABC 1 at 8.35pm on Monday 19th July and repeated on Tuesday 20th July 2010 at 11.30pm. Also on abc.net.au/4corners.

FOUR CORNERS: A CAREFUL WAR PART 2 – MONDAY 12 JULY AT 8.30PM ON ABC1

“The day before we were having a conversation, I’m thinking of how well he, how much he loved his job, how much he loved being here, like doing the job. We do all this for our mates. The reason we get up each morning and get out there and go and find this shit is for our mates.”

In early June this year an IED exploded killing two Australian engineers, Sappers Jacob Moerland and Darren Smith. They died defending the people of the Miribad Valley from Taliban insurgents. A Four Corners team was there the day the men left base, and they were there when the news came through of the fatal attack.

This week, Chris Masters looks at the work going on to create a decent society in Uruzgan province in Afghanistan – the kind of society that will give the people access to schools, vocational training and medical care. The Four Corners team goes with Mentoring Team Alpha as the Australians meet with locals. They go to the vocational training schools where young men are learning to be carpenters and builders.

In the Miribad Valley the work of constructing a new social infrastructure has been done with the assistance and overall command of Dutch forces. In a few months the Dutch will withdraw from the region. Four Corner looks at the situation they leave and how the Australians will continue the work when they go.

In this week’s story we come to see that Australian soldiers are called on to be defenders, diplomats and social workers – sometimes all in the same day. Their task is tough. If they make a mistake in any one of their roles, they can pay for it with their lives.

Part 2 of ‘A Careful War’ goes to air on Monday 12 July at 8.30pm on ABC 1. It is replayed on13th July at 11.35 pm.

Part 1 aired on ABC1 on Monday 5 July, and can still be seen at abc.net.au/4corners and abc.net.au/iview.

You can watch a Four Corners Broadband Special about the Australian troops in Afghanistan by going to abc.net.au/4corners.

FOUR CORNERS: A CAREFUL WAR – two-part special airs Monday 5 and 12 July, at 8.30pm on ABC1

They are called Mentoring Team Alpha, part of Mentoring Task Force 1 (MTF1) – a company of Australian soldiers backed by engineers whose job is to wage war against the Taliban in the Miribad Valley in Afghanistan. Fighting the Taliban is only part of their job. They must also protect the local people as well as train the Afghan National Army.

We meet the soldiers from Team Alpha as they prepare for their deployment. We see their own recordings shot on helmet-cam during fire-fights with the enemy. Then, joining them at their base, we travel with them on patrol as they go about their job.

Through this soldier’s-eye view of the war we come to understand what it means to obey an order that says you cannot fire until you have been fired on, and to appreciate what it’s like to know that every time you leave base you face the constant threat of attack from an unseen enemy. Sometimes the attack comes as a direct assault. More frequently the real danger lies with the IEDs set by their enemy on roads, paths and inside stone walls.

As these men explain to Chris Masters, it’s very hard to fight a war when you don’t know who the enemy really is. It’s even harder when the people you are trying to help accept your protection but don’t warn you of real danger:

“At first we got along really well, like you talk to them and stuff and you just felt sorry for them. But then after a while it gets a bit hard when you’re getting blown up, two, three times a week and they know about the IEDs and they don’t tell you about them.”

The soldiers have also learnt that within each province there are constant shifting alliances between the government, the Taliban, the local warlords and their private armies. As one local put it:

“The government wants to build Afghanistan but some people in the government, they are very big people, they are the enemy of Afghanistan.”

MTF1 also realise that they cannot be there forever. Ultimately their task is to help train an Afghan Army that can maintain security. That has long term and short term advantages:

“Well at the end of the day they’re Afghans and we’re not. They know this country better than we ever will. So we’ve got to harness their power in that regard, and these guys really are experts at picking up little innuendos in the environment.”

Jacob Moerland and Darren Smith paid the ultimate price in service of their country. Many other soldiers in Team Alpha have also been wounded. Yet none of the men that Four Corners spoke to wanted to leave. Without exception they made it clear they were in Afghanistan with their mates to do a job:

“They need our help here, right. If we leave, then it’s all the work that we’ve done for all the years since 2002 will go to nothing. Like, the Taliban will just take over this area and that’ll be worth nothing. The lives that we’ve lost and injuries will be worth nothing.”

A CAREFUL WAR: PART 1 goes to air on Monday 5 July at 8.30pm on ABC1, and is replayed on 6 July at 11.35pm.

A CAREFUL WAR: PART 2 airs on Monday 12 July at 8.30pm on ABC1, and is replayed on 13 July at 11.35pm.

FOUR CORNERS: DANCING WITH THE DEVIL – Monday 28 June at 8.30pm on ABC1

Over the next six years, the city of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil will host the soccer World Cup and the Olympic Games. The decision to allow Rio to host both these major tournaments is remarkable, because Rio is one of the most violent cities in the world.

Despite major efforts by the authorities and the police force to reduce the level of crime, up to 8,000 people are killed every year as a result of violence in the city. Each year police kill an estimated 1,000 citizens as they wage an ongoing war with gangs, bandits and drug traffickers.

Now Oscar and Emmy Award-winning director Jon Blair offers us an intimate look at one of the bloodiest urban conflicts on earth. This is a gripping film with unprecedented access to some of Rio de Janeiro’s most wanted men, and the specialist police units that hunt down and kill them. In “Dancing with the Devil”, three men stalk the gloomy back-alleys of the city’s notorious slums.

One is “Spiderman”, a 28-year-old drug lord that we first meet as he embarks on a routine patrol through the shadowy streets of Coréia, the sprawling favela he controls.

Another is his enemy, Inspector Leonardo Torres, a muscle-bound cop from Rio’s drug squad, who inches through the alleys of another shantytown, as shots ring out around him.

The third of the trio is Pastor Dione, an evangelical preacher intent on ending the city’s drug conflict. He trawls the slums for lost souls, trying to broker peace among all parties.

A gripping and ultimately tragic film, it reveals much about the characters and the feelings of the people it portrays.

‘Dancing With The Devil’ goes to air on 28th June at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is replayed on 29th June at 11.35pm. abc.net.au/4corners

ABC TV today announced that investigative reporter and author, Paul Barry, will be host of Media Watch while Jonathan Holmes takes long service leave in August.

A journalist for almost 40 years, Holmes joined the ABC in 1983 as the executive producer for Four Corners and has presented Media Watch for the past three seasons. He will enjoy a family holiday overseas before returning to Media Watch in February, 2011. Paul Barry hosted Media Watch in 2000.

Barry said he was delighted to be involved again with such an iconic TV program, which for the past 21 years has played a crucial role in keeping the media honest. “It will be great to be back in the chair, even if it is only for three months.”

Barry’s programs for ABC TV’s Four Corners in the late 1980s and early 1990s won him numerous television awards. Since then he has presented The Times and Witness on Channel Seven and reported for Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes.

His expose of tax-dodging barristers for the Sydney Morning Herald in 2001 won him a Walkley Award.

He has also written six best-sellers, including The Rise & Fall of Alan Bond, described by one reviewer as “essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in business and its morality during the turbulent 1980s”.

The Rise and Rise of Kerry Packer was praised for combining “the highest standards of investigative journalism with admirable professional balance and a refusal to be intimidated by perceptions of power”. He’s also written a biography of James Packer (Who Wants To Be A Billionaire?’).

FOUR CORNERS: ONE SHITTY DEAL – Monday 14 June at 8.30pm on ABC1

On the 22nd June 2007, a senior executive at Goldman Sachs, America wrote an email to the head of the company’s mortgage division saying:

“Boy that Timberwolf was one shitty deal.”

The email is both revealing and damning. Timberwolf was really just a fancy name for a billion dollar investment package, tied up with the US sub-prime mortgage market and sold by Goldman Sachs. As Four Corners shows, the New York bank had reason to believe the package was not a good investment for their clients.

In mid 2007, Goldman Sachs, Australia sold the Australian hedge fund Basis Capital an investment in Timberwolf valued at $100 million. Within days, as the sub-prime market in the United States began its meltdown, Timberwolf began to collapse in value. This week, Basis launched a $1 billion civil case against Goldman Sachs over the deal.

The US Senate and the country’s regulatory authorities also want to know why one of the country’s most respected finance houses was selling a product that was “crap” and why Timberwolf and other products collapsed in value within months.

Hundreds of Australian investors are asking the same thing.They invested in Basis believing they could get good returns. But many did not understand that Basis was investing in risky collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) linked to the US sub-prime market. Not only Goldman Sachs, but other big Wall Street firms had also sold CDOs to Basis.

Marian Wilkinson talks to the investors in Australia who lost their hard earned cash, and the regulators who were supposed to protect them. Authorities in Australia seem surprisingly relaxed about how the deals were done, suggesting that the securities were marketed to qualified finance houses that knew how to assess the products.

For the people in Australia that lost $350 million in Basis, that might be cold comfort. All they know is their investment was infected with something even bank executives are calling “a shitty deal”, and so far in this country very little has been done about it.

“ONE SHITTY DEAL” goes to air on Monday 14th June at 8.30pm ABC1. The program is replayed on 15th June at 11.35pm. It will also be available online and on iView.

FOUR CORNERS: RUSH TO RICHES – Monday 21 June at 8.30pm on ABC1

It’s remote, it’s untouched and the land and coast of the Kimberley in north-western Australia makes up one of the last remaining wilderness areas in the world. Now it’s the centre of a major battle between the land’s traditional owners, a resource giant and the State Government.

The Government and Woodside Petroleum want to build a massive gas processing plant at James Price Point on the Kimberley coast. That would mean a major road to the site, a massive jetty jutting out into the sea and a processing plant that looks like the internals of a refrigerator; so big it can be seen from space.

Many Indigenous people in the Kimberley region support the idea. They point out that over the next 30 years more than one billion dollars will be paid to the community by the company and the Government. Supporters believe that by accepting the deal Aboriginal people can take control of their lives.

“We believe that this project is about creating our own opportunities. We’re trying to get a deal that actually establishes a foundation that leaves a legacy for the future generations.”

Other Indigenous families are not so sure. Joe Roe says he represents the families with rights to the land where the gas plant will actually be built. He says the land holds great significance for his people.

Joe Roe takes reporter Debbie Whitmont out onto the rocks above the high-tide mark to show her the remarkable array of fossils and dinosaur footprints in the massive black stones that surround the point. Setting aside their significant scientific value, he says these fossils are part of the song cycle and tribal stories his people are trying to maintain. The last thing he wants is a development that will destroy that heritage:

“I’ve got to stand up like I always say and fight to protect things like this, it’s been handed down from generation to generation.”

Joe Roe claims the Kimberley Land Council, that is supposed to represent the local landholders, has ignored the rights of his people so they can negotiate a multi-million dollar compensation deal that will benefit groups that live miles away from the development. He argues that a crucial vote taken to give approval to the development was flawed.

The Western Australian Government is the other key player. Premier Colin Barnett has made it clear he wants the development to go ahead. Calling the area of James Price Point an “unremarkable bit of land”, he argues that the development can help Aboriginal people manage their own lives, giving them jobs, health care and housing they’ve never had before.

“High rates of unemployment, poor education, poor health standards, domestic violence, abuse and neglect of children. Am I as the Premier of Western Australia going to sit back and say I’m going to give up the opportunity to help those people? I’m sorry. I will not do that.”

For the Premier the bottom line with this development is simple: if local Indigenous groups can’t agree on a deal that would allow the plant to be built, the government will make arrangements to acquire the land.

In the end the matter will almost certainly be settled in court. But what does this story say about the value of land rights? The traditional owners of the land in the Kimberley may have land rights, but what precisely are their entitlements? If they are unable to reject a development proposal, is their only option to simply take the cash?

“RUSH TO RICHES” goes to air on the 21st June at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is replayed on the 22nd June at 11.3 pm. Also available on iView.

FOUR CORNERS: WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE - MONDAY 7 JUNE AT 8.30PM ON ABC1

Last summer, while most Australians were enjoying their holiday break, Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan also went to the beach. Instead of taking a novel to read he armed himself with the Henry Tax Review. It was clearly interesting.

Back from holidays, the Treasurer hatched a plan to introduce a super profits tax on mining resource projects and use it to cut company tax, boost superannuation and cut the deficit. It seemed like a political master-stroke. What he didn’t count on was the reaction from the mining industry. One mining boss called the tax “opportunistic”. Others alleged this was creating “sovereign risk” for mining companies. The term “nationalisation” was used by one mining executive, while another even suggested the policy smacked of “communism”.

For the past two weeks, Four Corners has followed the war of words, tracking the politicians, the mining executives and unions at the heart of this debate. As reporter Sarah Ferguson discovered when she spoke to one key mining boss, this debate is far from over:

“This is a grab for power. Grab for power by the by the centralist regime that lives in Canberra. The regime that didn’t bother (to put) the stupid Henry report on the table of the Australian people in the Parliament… The whole caucus didn’t even know about it. Hasn’t gone to Cabinet. Hasn’t gone to caucus…. that’s not democracy.”

The Prime Minister’s response has been to unleash a multi-million dollar advertising campaign and to confront allegations that he is holding a dagger to throat of the mining industry in the strongest terms:

“What a load of balderdash, what a load of absolute bunkum, I mean let’s get straight with this.”

Of course, there are more than two sides to this battle. Some business leaders outside the mining sector have made it clear they believe the miners do need to pay more tax. They argue that massive inflows of capital from mining exports can distort the economy and that they are fattening the coffers of the resource-rich states. They suggest the tax could soften that trend and help all Australians to share in the mining boom. As one expert told the program:

“The current tax take on profits is inadequate, and…a greater share needs to be secured for the community.  In fact, in the last ten years, the tax take on profits from the mining sector has actually halved as a share of profits.”

The question is, who will be the ultimate winner in this battle? The Government says it will negotiate but only on the finer details of the package. Mining companies say if they don’t get what they want they will wage war on the Government in the run-up to the next Federal election. Failing that, they may simply reduce investment in Australia and take their money elsewhere.

‘What’s Yours Is Mine’ goes to air on Monday 7th June at 8.30pm on ABC1. It is replayed on 8th June at 11.35pm. It will also be available online.