Political sledging
I love the lingua franca of Australian politics: the hate-filled colloquialisms, the mean and nasty metaphors, the take-no-prisoners style of verbal jousting.
This is a nation famed, and in some quarters feared, for its sporting sledging. From a journalistic viewpoint, its political equivalent is a notebook-filling joy to behold.
Of course, the former Labor leader Mark Latham was its most fluent practitioner. 
Commenting on what many regard as an overly-cosy relationship between John Howard and George W Bush, he : "Mr Howard and his government are just Yes-men to the United States. There they are, a conga line of suckholes on the conservative side of Australian politics."
For those who prefer their sound-bites in more easily digestible forms, he offered an even pithier alternative: Mr Howard was an "arse-licker".
Sometimes parliamentary question time in Canberra can be a watch-from-behind the-sofa affair, so fierce and vitriolic is the rhetorical onslaught.
Soon after arriving in Australia, I had dinner with a Labor shadow minister, who earlier that afternoon had been ejected from question time for his use of unparliamentary language. He sipped on his chilled chardonnay as if it was vintage champagne, revelling in his spell in the 'sin bin' like a pig who had just emerged from a gigantic vat of mud.
Kevin Rudd speaks a very different political language. First of all, he uses weird phrases. Long-awaited policy announcements, for instance, will come "in due season", a phrase he repeats almost robotically.
And how about "all over red rover", a line used repeatedly in relation to the debate over the television debate. The word Wacko seems to be another personal favourite.
Ahead of that 90-minute televised 'stoush' (another wonderful Australianism meaning 'fight') in which the leaders tried to 'spruik' their policies (yet another, meaning 'sell'), the Liberal Party even went as far as to release a 'bingo card' of 40 Ruddisms which it invited viewers to tick off.
Seemingly, they were trying to elevate 'nerd-speak' into something which disqualifies you from high office. Reporters have taken to calling him 'the Cliche Kid'.
Rudd's cautious use of language not only reflects his political personality but is surely part of a carefully thought-out political strategy: to conduct an error-free campaign, with not a stray word out of place. The strategy comes apart, of course, when others make mistakes, as Labor's environment spokesman Peter Garrett did .
Mr Garrett, the dome-headed former Midnight Oil front man, said a Labor government would sign a post-Kyoto climate change protocol, regardless of the involvement of China or India. His leader had to slap him down, in so doing echoing John Howard's oft-heard assertion that international agreements on climate change are worthless without those two emerging giants.
To quell the storm, the Mr Rudd deployed a volley of eco-jargon, talking of 'points of stability', 'commitment periods', 'interim targets', 'steering points' and 'scientific endpoints'.
Devotees of old-style political plain-speaking will therefore have savoured the rip-roaring contribution of former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating. In a virtuoso performance last week, Mr Keating at Treasurer Peter Costello, himself a savage political bruiser. Claiming the Treasurer had "been in a hammock 10 years", he then described him as "the laziest, most indolent, most unimaginative treasurer in postwar history".
The man that The Sun labelled 'The Lizard of Oz' for manhandling the Queen during a visit to Australia in 1992 was at his sharp-tongued best.
I have not yet heard Mr Rudd's reaction to his former leader's attack. No doubt it will come 'in due season'.
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"Stoushie "is an old Scots word obviously adopted and adapted in Australia
Mark Latham might be famous for his vernacular, but he certainly wasn't one of the best at delivering an Australian political slap-down.
In fact he was quite crude at it and that proved his downfall at the last election - he scared the voters off.
Paul Keating was probably the best of recent times - he once described John Hewson (who first publicly proposed a GST in a policy called Fightback) as a 'feral abacus' and his use of a birthday cake in a metaphor to cut down the GST on a debate was classic Keating.
After the election, for comedic effect he would pull out a copy of fightback during question time and watch then recoil like a vampire from a wooden cross.
It's a pity he's continued to lash out at both sides after he lost in 1996 because he was a good treasurer but now seems bitter.
Latham's delivery, on the other hand, was thuggish and not particularly smart.
Latham, when he became opposition leader, said 'the crudity' would end.
It did (until after he resigned from politics and blamed everybody under the sun for not winning the election) but it then became a challenge for the government to provoke a reaction from him.
What happened was that famous handshake outside the radio studio where Latham virtually headbutted John Howard.
That was when Latham lost the election.
And Howard was said to be 'on the nose' at that stage too.
But Australian politicking is a take-no prisoners activity.
The language used somewhat mirrors what 'normal' people speak about their politicians.
But the reason why politics is such a blood sport is that we Australians typically don't care about them, so the pollies have to fight for a sound grab on the six o'clock news to get noticed.
And the best performers in parliament are usually the targets of The Chaser boys to get a rise outside 'coward's castle'.
We have to vote but pretty much believe that politicians are in it to get a good superannuation payout and not much more.
We don't see them until they need our vote is a typical attitude.
Pete, some of us are political junkies, you know, although I know you accurately describe many Aussies, nevertheless.
Those brought up in a family business environment, particularly with property investments used as financial gearing, you will find think about very different things compared with those on salaries and wages.
Everything is reliant upon Government fiscal management, so one becomes used to having one ear constantly tuned to the political speak of the pollies. I think we are typical of a significant sector within our Australian society.