Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was accused of using outdated slang to win over voters yesterday, after repeatedly demanding a “fair shake of the sauce bottle, mate.”
He used the phrase three times in a short interview with Sky News on Tuesday, each time accompanied by a self-conscious grin.
“We’ve appointed the first woman as governor-general of the Commonwealth of Australia — fair shake of the sauce bottle, mate,” Rudd said, when grilled about whether his government had done enough to promote women.
Opposition frontbencher Tony Abbott said Rudd was “desperate” to shake off his nerdy image and connect with the Australian people — but was using language that was at least 30 years out of date.
“He’s doing it in ways that don’t sound authentic and that’s a big problem,” Abbott said.
It is not the first time Rudd — who was criticized for using impenetrable bureaucratic jargon after his election 18 months ago — has resorted to the language of the common people to make a point.
In March, he said the global financial crisis meant his government was facing a political “shit storm,” before immediately rephrasing and apologizing to viewers.
Last year, Rudd said he had to “drive the porcelain bus,” or vomit, after catching a stomach bug that he blamed on eating “a dodgy dagwood dog” — a kind of hot dog.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
A man has survived clinging to the outside of an Austrian high-speed train, Austria’s state railway said on Sunday, reportedly after it left while he was having a cigarette break. The man late on Saturday grabbed onto the outside of the train at St Poelten, west of Vienna, and was later taken onboard after the train performed an emergency stop, railways spokesman Herbert Hofer said. “It is irresponsible, this kind of thing usually ends up with someone dying,” he said. “And you’re not just putting yourself in danger, if you end up under the train there’s rescuers, there’s police, fire
RSS