In a country which sees ”bastard” and ”ratbag” as terms of endearment, a call for a return to old-fashioned standards of courtesy might seem out of place.
But the Australian prime minister, John Howard, has called on his country — well known for its fertile imagination in inventing terms for vomiting — to behave with more civility in future.
”We are a less polite country now than we used to be,” he told Southern Cross radio on Friday. ”We do need more civility and more civility leads to a greater enjoyment of life.”
In a speech in Adelaide on Thursday he laid out his stall for the election expected this October by lamenting ”a coarsening of the culture” in Australia. The trend was leading towards ”a less restrained, less civil approach to personal dealings,” he said.
The remarks were seen as being aimed at the leader of the opposition Labour party, Mark Latham, whose rough diamond image has been under attack following a television programme last Sunday which aired claims he had punched an elderly constituent to the ground during an election poll count in 1989.
Latham has claimed that the investigations of his background were sparked by the work of a government dirt-digging unit.
Australian voters are traditionally tolerant of rough behaviour by their leaders. It has long been known that Latham broke the arm of a taxi driver during an argument near his western Sydney home in 2001, and he is equally notorious for his loose tongue.
He spent one of his first interviews after winning the party leadership last December promising to moderate his language, having previously described the government benches as ”a conga line of suckholes” in their support for the Iraq war, and labelled a conservative female columnist a ”skanky ho”, or dirty prostitute.
Former prime minister Bob Hawke was proud of his world record in yard of ale drinking, while Howard’s predecessor, Paul Keating, described the former opposition leader John Hewson as a ”painted, perfumed gigolo” and called Howard a ”mangy maggot” and ”dead carcass”. He also said Howard was ”like a shiver waiting for a spine to crawl up”.
The image of the sharp-tongued larrikin is a cherished part of Australian culture, but Howard, who describes himself as the most conservative prime minister in Australia’s history, has never identified with it.
”Larrikinism is minor bad behaviour and it’s admirable and funny if you’re not the subject of it,” historian Jill Matthews, of the Australian National University, told the Associated Press. ”The question is always how far is too far and I think the prime minister is now trying to draw a line in the sand for the purposes of placating his conservative constituency.”
What they say …
”Don’t come the raw prawn with me”
”You’ve got a head like a half-sucked mango”
”You couldn’t raffle a chook in a pub”
”May your chooks turn into emus and kick your dunny door down”
”You’re lower than a snake’s belly”
”Stop that or you’ll get a shellacking”
… and what they mean
”Do not make fun of me”
”You are ugly”
”You are very disorganised”
”I am not happy with you”
”Your behaviour is immoral”
”You’ll be dealt with should you not desist”
– Guardian Unlimited Â