Anyone else struggle with languages? I've been grappling with Italian for months yet my best efforts continue sounding like a malfunctioning espresso machine. Sentences stutter, gurgle and even hiss in inappropriate places. Verbs become violently entangled. Conjugations collapse in mid-air.

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And let's not even start on that confounding Italian insistence of bestowing a gender on everyday objects like furniture and cutlery.

It's a humbling experience to be incompetent in a subject others master so intuitively. But at least I can sympathise with our nation's politicians whenever they attempt to speak in English.

Last week's ascension of Angus Taylor to the Liberal Party leadership was accompanied by the traditional word salad of someone unfamiliar with clear language. There were promises of "core values", "restoring confidence" and "rolling up the sleeves" - the predictable swag of garbage phrases uttered so often they should qualify for a recycling deposit scheme.

Taylor, of course, is hardly on his own when it comes to transforming his native tongue into focus group mush. The PM's preference for cautious language often makes him sound like he's waiting for official clearance to finish a sentence. It's the paradox of modern politics. Words so carefully chosen land on the ear like elevator music. Political discussion has become the linguistic equivalent of a beige cardigan. No wonder the electorate has stopped listening.

Just a month ago the Canadian PM Mark Carney delivered a remarkable self-penned speech in Davos. He spoke of a "rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality". His warning that the old days of geopolitical niceties were over was greeted with acclaim and astonishment that a politician would - let alone could - speak so eloquently and honestly.

"The old order is not coming back," announced Carney. "We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy."

But peering into the past helps remind us that Australia's political discourse wasn't always so insipid. Bob Hawke announced economic reforms like a bloke shouting a drink for a rowdy pub crowd. Paul Keating wielded words like a medieval swordsman, equal parts elegance and menace. Gough Whitlam spoke in grandiose sentences while Sir Robert Menzies boasted a rolling grandeur that made the country feel larger and more important than it was.

John Howard was hardly an accomplished lyricist. But he did speak fluent Middle-Australian. He........

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