On the ABC last night, Chris Uhlmann – one of our up-and-coming political journalists – interviewed Peter O’Neill, who is one of the two Prime Ministers currently battling it out in Papua New Guinea. You probably know nothing about this, so here’s a link to give you a little background, though you don’t need to know anything about it for the purposes of this post.
Uhlmann is trying to be an aggressive type of journo, but he’s still reasonably respectful when he talks with Gillard, Rudd or Abbott. Last night he spoke to O’Neill (who is Papua New Guinean through and through, name notwithstanding) as though he, Uhlmann, were a member of a super-power, condescending to a representative of a minor client state.
O’Neill ignored the impolite tone, concentrating on answering the questions at face value, until the final supercilious question was delivered, “Have you yet spoken with Julia Gillard?”
O’Neill looked up at the camera, exhibiting, or quite possibly feigning, great surprise and responded, “Why on earth should I want to talk to the Australian Prime Minister? She has nothing to do with the government of my country.”
Uhlmann looked utterly nonplussed, as he should. Hopefully he will be a little more respectful next time. PNG may have once been an Australian colony, but that ended 36 years ago.
Boadicea's Chariot 
My comment has disappeared. 😦
I love PNG with a passion. It is probably my favourite South Pacific destination with the possible exception of Samoa, but, as with most countries, it deserves better than the politicians who usually float to the top. The “Grand Chief”, Sir Michael Somare, has been there since independence in the early 70’s, but he is now old and ill and too tainted by 40 years in politics to be of further use. He should retire gracefully and leave Peter O’Neill to take the country forward.
OZ
Good evening, Bearsy.
I did know about the Somare/O’Neill imbroglio as I was in your fair land when it all kicked off and it was news in your press, albeit a wee bit down the order. I seem to remember that. at the time, the main thrust was that Sir Michael’s family had handed in his resignation without consulting him and that he was not best pleased.
So, I rushed to your link to update myself and was thrilled to see that Australian has borrowed yet another good Jockinese word. I refer, of course, to ‘stoush’.
I’m not over confident about this, given the Southron inability to pronounce even a simple word like ‘scone’ correctly, but I am hoping that Aussies pronounce ‘stoush’ properly as in ‘stool’ and not ‘stout’. Whatever, it clearly comes from our word ‘stoushie’, also spelt ‘stooshie’ or ‘stushie’.
I googled and discovered that it meant the same in both our tongues.
For the avoidance of doubt, by the way, the word ‘scone’ can only ever be pronounced to rhyme with ‘gone’ unless it refers to the ancient capital of Scotland where our Kings were crowned on the Stone of Destiny (aka the Stone of Scone), in which case it rhymes with ‘spoon’.
In my opinion.
Why is it always about Scotland? 🙄
Stoush, pronounced st-ow-sh in Strine, where the ow is as in how now brown cow, is –
Most “definitions” on the web are wrong.
Oh, be fair Bearsy, often it is about Strine. Sometimes it is about the continent of Africa, and even the USA, and Denmark. The truth is, we are all a little bit geo-centric in our outlook.
I love this though.
Since we read your definition on the web, are we allowed to assume it is wrong? 🙂
Of course you can. You can read it however you like. I was just trying to be helpful by responding to JM.