Soon after meeting and falling in love, Andrew and Olivia Densley agreed they both adored kids and wanted a large family. They got married and got on with their dream. But after having their fourth child they received terrible news. Their third child, a son, had a genetic immune deficiency disease which looked likely to kill him. Just when all seemed lost though, he was saved by a long-shot miracle. His little brother, the couple’s fourth child, was a match as a bone marrow donor. But as Tom Steinfort reports, at this point the story gets even more complicated. While Andrew and Olivia knew the substantial risks of having more children, it didn’t stop them. Olivia fell pregnant with a fifth child who was also born with the usually fatal disease. But having rolled the dice and lost, the couple refused to give up. It has taken several years and a hundred thousand dollars, but they’ve managed to engineer another extraordinary solution.
Reporter: Tom Steinfort
Producer: Stefanie Sgroi
A MAGPIE CALLED PENGUIN
Somewhere, flying around the northern beaches of Sydney, is a magpie called Penguin who often thinks she’s a human. And if that’s not incredible enough, this amazing bird has another claim to fame – she’s a lifesaver. Penguin taught Sam Bloom, a mother of three, how to live again after she fell from a balcony, broke her back and became a paraplegic. It’s a truly inspiring tale that not surprisingly will also soon be a Hollywood movie.
Reporter: Allison Langdon
Producer: Bryce Corbett
HELL OF A VIEW
It is a hell of a view, or some might say, a view of hell – the rivers of molten lava flowing from the Mount Kilauea volcano and reshaping the Hawaiian countryside and coastline. As Liz Hayes finds out, up close, it’s completely mesmerising and more than a little bit frightening. The lava stops for nothing. In the last three months, since the volcano has woken, it has consumed countless homes and destroyed many livelihoods. But strangely, most locals living in its path show an acceptance of the fury in their backyards. And that’s just as well, because scientists are predicting the eruptions probably won’t stop for years.
Six-year-old Isabella Lombardo is a real chatterbox. Smart and beautiful, she lights up any room. But she has lived her short life debilitated by cerebral palsy. It’s a tough disorder, and when it was diagnosed her mum and dad vowed to do anything and everything they could to help their precious daughter. For four years Libby and Joseph Lombardo searched the world and spent all their savings, but eventually found a radical new stem-cell treatment in Mexico. The prize it offered was the hope Isabella might walk for the first time. Then they faced the most difficult decision of all: should they put their faith – and their daughter’s life – in the hands of unknown doctors and untested science?
Reporter: Liam Bartlett
Producer: Stefanie Sgroi
ISIS BRIDE, AUSSIE BABY
It would be easy to give Islam Mitat the coldest of shoulders, to ignore her despair and say we couldn’t care less about her. After all she was an ISIS bride, married to a British jihadi, and living at the front line of the war in Syria. And when, not surprisingly, her husband was killed in battle, she married an Australian ISIS fighter and had his baby. He too paid the ultimate price for his beliefs, leaving Islam with no choice but to make a daring and dangerous escape. Now, in an exclusive 60 MINUTES interview conducted in a secret North African location, she tells Tara Brown she was tricked into going to Syria in the first place. It’s a revelation that raises serious questions. Should we believe her? And what should become of this ISIS bride and her Aussie baby?
Reporter: Tara Brown
Producers: Eliza Berkery, Ali Smith
THE LONG PADDOCK
Unless you’ve had your head stuck in the non-existent clouds, you’d know large tracts of eastern Australia are in the iron grip of the nastiest drought in 50 years. The experts say if there isn’t rain soon it will become the worst drought since records were first kept. But while there has been a flood of stories about desperation and despair, Charles Wooley reckons it’s just as important to highlight the incredible resilience of the people on the land, despite these hardest of times. Way out beyond Tamworth in country New South Wales he met the wonderful Hourigan family, drovers who are moving 900head of cattle along what is known as “the long paddock”.
AGE OF OUTRAGE
To slightly bastardise that famous Hollywood line: Australians are as mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore! The feeling is amplified by social media which is giving instant – and deafening – voice to our outrage. On Facebook and Twitter it seems there’s a lot that we’re angry about, and we’ve become very accurate when we spit our venom. For proof, hashtag Malcolm Turnbull or Peter Dutton. Even Charles Wooley knows what it’s like to cop the public’s wrath. Earlier this year on 60 MINUTES he dared to describe the New Zealand Prime Minister as “attractive”. As a result of the backlash he now wonders if we’ve gone too far and asks, is getting high on hate killing free speech?
Reporter: Charles Wooley
Producer: Bryce Corbett
UNMASKED
To his neighbours, 72-year-old Joseph DeAngelo was an unlikeable, whingeing curmudgeon. No doubt he would have bitched at the nickname they gave him too, “Crazy Joe”. But that is nothing compared with the label police and prosecutors in the United States are now trying to pin on him. They accuse DeAngelo of being the Golden State Killer, a serial murderer and rapist as vile as has ever lived. In the 1970s and 80s, it’s alleged he wreaked havoc all over the state of California while evading capture. And he might have gotten away with it forever, except for some of the most innovative detective work you will ever see.
Reporter: Liam Bartlett
Producer: Stefanie Sgroi
While you’re watching 60 MINUTES , chances are children all over the country will be glued to different screens, playing video games. The amount of time they spend on their gaming consoles is an increasing worry for parents, but on the upside, at least it keeps them quiet, right? The game that currently stands out in the popularity stakes, especially with boys, is Fortnite. For the creators it’s an enormous business success, boasting 125 million regular players around the world. But as Tara Brown reports, therein lies the problem. It, and games like it, are so good, and provide such a sensory smorgasbord of action and colour, that children are becoming dangerously addicted. They’re playing for days on end, to the exclusion of everything else in their lives, including school, friends and family. Try to stop them and parents are guaranteed a meltdown. The World Health Organisation is now so concerned about the serious health implications of excessive gaming by young people that it classifies video gaming disorder as a disease.
Reporter: Tara Brown
Producer: Alice Dalley
OUT OF LEFT FIELD
What Juan Catalan endured at the hands of the Los Angeles police is no laughing matter, but it’s comedy that saved him. It all started when LAPD detectives accused Juan of a cold-blooded murder he didn’t commit, that resulted with Juan being put on death row. It was an extraordinary denial of justice, but the police were convinced Juan was the killer. In their minds there was no doubt or presumption of innocence. In court, it was up to the suspect to show he did not commit the crime, which meant Juan Catalan had to prove his alibi: that he was one of 58,000 spectators at a major league baseball game on the night of the murder. His legal team set out on the near impossible task of finding a needle in a haystack, and just when it looked like all hope was lost, out of left field appeared his unlikely saviour – the famous Hollywood funnyman who created Seinfeld .
When Lynette Dawson mysteriously vanished from her Sydney home one night in January 1982, her four-year-old daughter Shanelle was confused and heartbroken. How could her mum leave her? Shanelle’s father, schoolteacher Chris Dawson, told everyone his wife had run off to join a religious cult. Yet two days after his wife’s disappearance he moved his 16-year-old schoolgirl lover into the family home, and into his bed. Fast forward 36 years and there’s still no trace of Lynette Dawson, but police and two New South Wales coroners are convinced that she was murdered, and there is evidence which implicates Chris Dawson. This year there has been renewed interest in the case because of an extraordinary podcast called The Teacher’s Pet . It’s been downloaded more than 17 million times, making it one of the most popular true-crime podcasts ever produced in the world. Now, after years of believing her father, Shanelle Dawson is being forced to confront the awful reality that her mother is dead. For the first time, she speaks publicly about Chris Dawson and the serious accusations made against him.
Reporter: Allison Langdon
Producer: Garry McNab
PAINKILLER
The drug Fentanyl was created almost 60 years ago as a painkiller. There is no doubt it works – it’s 50 times stronger than heroin. But as well as being dangerously potent it’s highly addictive, and has transformed from painkiller to plain killer. In the United States a national emergency has been declared because of an epidemic of fatal Fentanyl overdoses – which include entertainment icons Prince and Tom Petty. And it’s the ease of access to the drug – in America and now Australia – that is largely responsible. Addicts don’t need to meet a dodgy dealer in an alleyway to get a hit. They simply make an appointment with their local GP and ask for a prescription.
It’s no secret that Australia is experiencing a downturn in the property market. But for Aussies who own their own home or have a mortgage, there’s worse news. Many believe calling it a downturn is foolishly optimistic – the slump we are in is more like falling off a cliff. On 60 MINUTES , Tom Steinfort speaks with real estate and finance experts who predict property prices could slide by as much as 40 per cent in the next year. And if they’re right and numbers like that eventuate, there’s only one certainty: our entire economy faces catastrophe.
Reporter: Tom Steinfort
Producers: Gareth Harvey, Joel Tozer
JURASSIC BARK
From the “What will they think of next?” files comes hope for humans mourning the deaths of long-loved pet dogs. With just a single cell, a laboratory in South Korea is creating replicas of devoted owners’ departed pooches. As Tara Brown finds out, it’s not quite the movie Jurassic Park , more like Jurassic Bark , but still the science of cloning animals is an incredible glimpse into an exciting, if not creepy, world. There is always a “but”, though, and in this case it’s a big one. Who would hand over $135,000 so they would never have to say goodbye to a favourite pet?
Reporter: Tara Brown
Producer: Gareth Harvey
NOVEL GAZING
In the world of publishing the accepted wisdom is that if a writer reaches 20,000 book sales they’re given the prized title, “best-selling author”. But based on that premise, there aren’t enough superlatives to describe Liane Moriarty. The unassuming Australian’s books sell not in the thousands but the millions – in fact more than 14 million at last count. No wonder Hollywood superstars Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon came knocking on Liane’s door. They loved her novel, Big Little Lies , so much that they turned it into a television blockbuster, which has now turned Liane Moriarty into an even greater success story.
Alida Lancee is a very brave Perth GP whose life is about to change. On 60 MINUTES , she will make a very serious confession which will put her reputation, her livelihood and, most of all, her freedom on the line. She will publicly admit to helping one of her patients die, and she will name that patient. It’s an admission which is likely to lead to a police investigation and a possible charge of murder. Dr Lancee is taking this action because she says euthanasia laws need to be changed to ease the suffering of terminally ill Australians. She says if she has to pay an enormous price for her beliefs, then so be it.
Reporter: Tara Brown
Producer: Joel Tozer
POLITICIANS BEHAVING BADLY
Here’s a question. Do we ever get any answers in Question Time? It’s supposed to be an important part of the parliamentary process, a chance to keep the government accountable on important issues of the day. In reality it is becoming a screaming match of insults and abuse, and a grubby window through which we’ve witnessed a decade of brutal politics and the career execution of four prime ministers. As a result, people outside the Canberra bubble are increasingly cynical about out-of-touch MPs, mostly men, who seem to seem to delight in bullying each other and their female colleagues. In a special report for 60 MINUTES , the Nine Network’s political editor, Chris Uhlmann, speaks with former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop who reveals that Australian politics has become an international joke, the “coup capital of the world”. But there is some positive news. Free from the constraints of her jet-setting ministerial position, Bishop has committed to an even more significant leadership role: improving behaviour in the Australian parliament
Reporter: Chris Uhlmann
Producer: Howard Sacre
HIT MAN
If ever proof was needed of how time flies while you’re having fun, just look at Rod Stewart. It is hard to believe, but he’s been making hit records for more than 50 years now and his latest album, his 30th, will be released next week. It’s an extraordinary career which clearly shows a hard-drinking – and loving – life of rock-star excess agrees with him. Rod is 73 but looks and acts decades younger, and as Liam Bartlett discovers from the passenger seat of his canary yellow Lamborghini, success means never having to slow down.
When Americans voted Donald Trump their president, it wasn’t difficult to predict that things were going to get bumpy. It turns out they also got stormy – Stormy Daniels that is. She’s the stripper and porn star whose claim about having a one-night stand with Mr Trump back in 2006 has the potential to undermine the authority – and credibility – of the most powerful man in the world. He says it’s not true and accuses Stormy of extortion, but as he’s now discovering, she is a woman not to be messed with, or silenced. On 60 MINUTES , Stormy Daniels reveals how 90 seconds of what she describes as “the least impressive” sex she has ever had has led to one of the most titillating political scandals in United States history.
Reporter: Liz Hayes
Producers: Garry McNab, Stefanie Sgroi
THE ANSWER
When it comes to our children’s education, is there a more divisive argument than private versus public schooling? The answer is yes. But far more polarising is the question of whether kids do better in single sex or co-educational classes, and every parent has an opinion. In Australia it seems boys-only or girls-only schools are on the way out, with the co-education lobby determined to make them history within 20 years. But Liam Bartlett asks, is this a cause for celebration or concern?
Reporter: Liam Bartlett
Producers: Garry McNab, Alice Dalley
GIRL POWER
At six foot two (1.87 metres), weighing a hundred kilos and blessed with a mighty kicking boot, Hannah Mouncey should have been a shoo-in to play at the elite level of the women’s Australian rules competition, the AFLW. But late last year the AFL said no, deciding she was too much of a physical threat to her opponents. Hannah believes there is another reason: the fact she was born a boy, not a girl. Her case highlights the difficulties many transgender athletes face. Since being rejected, Hannah has been considering whether to reapply for the Women’s AFL. Now she has come to a decision.
As if the 2007 murder of Corryn Rayney wasn’t traumatic and incomprehensible enough for her family, the unrelenting police pursuit of her husband as the perpetrator must be one of the most appalling denials of justice and decency imaginable. Lloyd Rayney was a high-profile Perth barrister who was presumed guilty of the murder almost from the moment his wife’s body was discovered in a bush grave in a city park. But in a special edition of 60 MINUTES, Tara Brown reports that detectives missed or ignored other vital clues. As a consequence of the flawed investigation, whoever did murder Corryn Rayney remains unknown and unpunished. Lloyd Rayney, on the other hand, is a broken man after being hounded by the WA Police. In 2012, a court found him not guilty of willful murder, with the judge describing the prosecution case as being beset by “improbabilities and uncertainties”. But that doesn’t ease the pain for the man who wants the police to now put aside their prejudices against him, conduct a proper investigation, and find his wife’s killer.
I haven’t really watched 60 Minutes in a while but I was under the impression that Ross Coulthart (as pictured in that promotional image) left Nine after his contract wasn’t renewed back in April.
