Background Briefing Folgen

Jacki Whittaker thought one of the bedrooms in her Melbourne rental home smelt like "cat piss". But the real culprit was something far more sinister. The previous tenants had been cooking methamphetamine in the bathroom resulting in significant contamination. Jacki and her two adult children were told by a testing company they must leave immediately because it wasn’t safe to stay in the house. But no one really knows how many of us are actually at risk from meth residues because even scientists haven’t even worked it out. In this episode, Hagar Cohen investigates how some operators in an unregulated meth testing industry are scamming the public and profiting from our fear.

In this episode, we investigate allegations that staff at a popular Alice Springs hotel managed by Australia’s largest hotel group, Accor, have been segregating Aboriginal guests into inferior rooms. Undercover recordings and a whistleblower account reveal Aboriginal guests being charged $129 for a room with dirty sheets on the bed, and chicken bones and broken glass on the floor. Reporter Oliver Gordon meets the people falling through the cracks of a flawed complaints system.

You've heard of online trolls, but what happens when they share your private data, like your contact details, with malicious intent? ABC Life’s Osman Faruqi found out the hard way. Last August, a far-right activist posted his phone number on social media. Osman was inundated with racist text messages and phone calls that continue to this day. In this episode, which is a co-production with ABC Life, Osman confronts the man responsible. And with the help of reporter Alex Mann, he investigates why law enforcement is seemingly powerless to protect victims.