Month: December 2016
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Australian Word of the Year 2016
Democracy sausage has been named Australian Word of the Year 2016. Democracy sausage: A barbecued sausage served on a slice of bread, bought at a polling booth sausage sizzle on election day. The Australian National Dictionary Centre, based at The Australian National University, selected democracy sausage because of its increased prominence in Australia in a…
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The National Party
The enduring strength of a rural-based party in Australia—the National Party—has been rightly judged ‘unique’ (Costar and Woodward 1985, p. 2). Other developed countries have had rural-based parties, but none continued to prosper into the second post-war generation. In the 1920s ‘farmers’ parties’ burgeoned in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, but in the post 1945 period…
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Oxford Word of the Month: December – koala diplomacy
noun: Australia’s use of koalas as diplomatic gifts to other countries; a form of Australian soft power diplomacy. THE STORY BEHIND THE WORD OF THE MONTH In May 1994, Australia arranged for a koala called Blinky Bill (named after a famous koala in Australian children’s fiction) and his younger half-brother, Kupala, to spend some time…