Michael talks to Dr Jane Kotzmann, Lecturer (International Law) School of Law, Faculty of Business & Law, about the fine line between traditional hunting methods and outright animal cruelty… brought about by two recent disturbing incidents.

 

Reports of an off-duty Aboriginal police officer escaping criminal charges for throwing rocks at a wombat on South Australia's west coast.

 

And a northern NSW man has been charged after allegedly using a longbow to fire arrows at an eight-month-old puppy named Bucket.

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren.

Michael speaks to Professor Pasi Stahlberg, professor of education policy at the Gonski Institute for Education University of NSW, about the latest PISA results which saw Australia scoring its lowest ever results in reading, mathematics and science.

But it’s not just Australia in steady decline. New Zealand, Canada (except in Alberta), Japan, Korea, the Netherlands and Finland are heading in the same direction. Actually, the 37 OECD countries, the wealthiest in the world, on average, are doing worse in PISA than previously.

Hence, the main question to be asked is not: What are our schools and teachers doing wrong?

Instead, we should be asking: What is possibly causing this downward trend in many countries now?

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Michael is joined by Dr Sue Thomson, Deputy CEO (Research) at ACER, who says Australia has a great deal of work ahead for its education system to excel by international standards.

Australian 15-year-old reading scores are way below those of their peers in ten countries – including Singapore, Estonia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Korea & Poland… and around 41% of Australian 15 year olds have failed to meet the minimum national standards in reading – up from 31% in 2000.

These are some of the results from the OECD’s 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) released today, which tested the performance of education systems across 79 countries and economies.

Saul Eslake, Independent consulting economist & commentator, talks to Michael about Australia’s economy expanding by an underwhelming 0.4 per cent in the September quarter as shoppers failed to use falling interest rates and $25 billion worth of tax cuts to spend.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday reported annual GDP lifted to 1.7 percent but still remains well short of what is considered necessary to drive down unemployment and lift wages with chief economist Bruce Hockman saying "the economy has continued to grow, however the rate of growth remains well below the long run average.”

Ahead of the figures, economists had expected at 0.4 per cent after an upwardly revised 0.6 per cent in the June quarter.

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren.

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren.

Listen to the full show podcast with Michael McLaren.

Michael is joined by Gideon Haigh, The Australian senior cricket writer, about David Warner’s record-breaking triple century that has passed Sir Donald Bradman’s 334 run milestone and has become a heated debate.

Opinions on social media are divided as to whether Warner should have let Bradman’s record stand, as Aussie players are torn between retiring equal to, or just short of the record set by the great man.