Caitlin Cassidy at the Guardian gives us a primer on Australian election terms:
Rorts
Voters hate rorts, and politicians love to accuse each other of rorting. Rorts come in many forms. Election rorts are when the parties distribute taxpayer dollars unfairly to boost their chances of winning votes – like handing out grants for community sports clubs based on colour coded spreadsheets rather than merit. […]
Corflutes
Corflutes are plastered across every major street in Australia for a few weeks when an election is taking place and then disappear into the ether. The word is a registered trademark of Corex Australia, denoting, in a political context, corrugated plastic sheeting used for temporary signage to promote a candidate, found anywhere from shopping centres to trees, highways or front gardens. Essentially, it’s a waterproof poster, but Australians call it a corflute. […]
Stoush
Stoush is a word the media loves to use whenever there is conflict. It spans a wide spectrum: if you’re in an animated debate, that’s a stoush. If you’re brawling, that’s a stoush. If you’ve taken someone to court – stoush. Same goes for policy disagreements, factional differences, campaign disputes. Parties may be stoushing internally, or with other parties, industry groups or lobbyists. The prime minister was even involved in a stoush with Canada over Vegemite.
Needless to say, there has also been an outbreak of corflute stoushes.
Click through for more, including fake tradies, the donkey vote, and spruiking (which we discussed here in 2021). The OED says rort is “Probably a back-formation < rorty adj. [Boisterous, rowdy; saucy; jolly, cheery. Also: dissipated, profligate]”; for stoush it says:
Perhaps compare Scots stash (1851), stush (1892), stoush (1914), all in the sense ‘uproar, disturbance, row, brawl’ (shortened < stushie n.; compare forms at that entry); however, a derivation from this word (although often suggested) would present phonological and semantic difficulties […]
Thanks, Trevor!
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