Prime Minister Tony Abbott is a lot of things, but a cunning linguist is generally not one of them. What he does well in lieu of offering iconic slices of eloquence is he, along with his media department, tightly controls the subject and linguistic nature of his public statements. For the most part, he knows exactly what he’s going to say, where and when he’ll say it, with what tone and in what context. It’s an extraordinarily tightly ran system, the existence of which only becomes apparent when Abbott inadvertently lifts the lid on it when timing is against him and he gets caught off the cuff – situations where a little bit of political hubris gets the better of him and he inevitably tries to jump in places well before the safety net has been put up.
But just how much has his use of language changed in the 12 months following last year’s Federal Election in which he, and the Coalition Party, romped into power over a directionless incumbent Labor?
The ABC has conducted research – compiling the 200,000-odd words Tony Abbott publicly spoke during the 12 months before, and the 12 months after, the 2013 Federal Election, ranking topics that were spoken about more prior to the vote, and topics that have been spoken about more since forming Government.
The whole thing has been boiled down into a fancy, fun – if not freaking scary – quiz through which to test your own grasp of the ebbing and flowing of Australia’s political dialogue.
A quiz on the internet based on actual research and data, rather than an arbitrary set of nothings to determine which TV character you’re just so like? What a time to be alive!
Photo: Mark Metcalfe via Getty Images.
