Can't say "mate" properly, but bless him for trying

“Have you ever heard Kevin Rudd say ‘mate‘?" a colleague asked yesterday. “He doesn’t say it … properly.” True; Rudd struggles with the tones, inflections and phrasing of broad Australian speech. But bless him for trying: Sensitive to criticism that his new frontbench line-up had overlooked women in favour of factional heavies, Mr Rudd yesterday dismissed the claims with the Aussie maxim, “fair shake of the sauce bottle mate”.   More curiously, he said it three times during a short television interview with Sky News.   Some trace Rudd’s sauciness to his Sunrise apprenticeship. The Prime Minister had another Ozzified verbal weapon for his Sky audience: At another stage of the same interview, his normally complex sentences – often derided as techno-babble – gave way to a style commonly used in post-match interviews.   The new Defence Minister Senator John Faulkner, became “Faulks” – a familiarisation not even used inside the ALP.   With that in mind, the following includes PM-approved abbreviations: The reshuffle attracted criticism for its promotion of men and for the elevation of newcomers connected to factions over some competent, but less well-connected MPs. Promotions included new minister Mark Arbib [Arbs], a powerful figure from the NSW Right faction with less than a year as a senator and SA’s Mark Butler [Butts], an influential Left powerbroker also in his first term in Parliament. Strong performers such as Maxine McKew [Kubes], Amanda Rishworth [Mands] and Melissa Parke [er … Parkes] were overlooked.   At the swearing in, Governor-General Quentin Bryce [Quents] struck a blow for women in the workforce, asking one minister’s wife not to take a crying baby outside during the formal ceremony declaring: “I don’t believe in taking children out of the room”.   So Kevin was allowed to stay. He doesn’t know his Shakes from his Totles, either.   Tim Blair     Oh, f*ck, it is painful listening to K R Puff'n'Fluff trying to sound like a normal person. Add "ridgey-didge" to the list please. Just never sounds real. Bit like his stories about his childhood.   Though, to be fair, Howard went through that period where his media and image handlers had told him that he had to stop being himself, and must come across as an ordinary bloke.   The results were excruciating.   I still feel the pain when remembering him refer to Ian Sinclair in interviews as "Sinkers".

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