Conclusion

In general，Australian political discourse consists of the following features：

·　It is a privileged language；only certain groups of people are allowed to use it.Access to and the performance of language are restricted and profoundly reflect socialrank and privilege.

·　It is comprised predominantly of slogans and propaganda，rather than statementsof truth or facts.It contains many acceptable and unacceptable lies and empty promises.

·　It differs from classical oratory tradition in terms of locutionary and illocutionary force，in that it merely tries to persuade rather than summon and guide the public.

·　It utilises and develops classical rhetoric techniques with modern information technology such as sound，graphics，and texts to maximise its persuasive function.For example，in Australian political history including the 1972 federal parliamentary campaign，the ALP used the entire range of IT.［8］（This subject is dealt with in another article.）

·　It is not oratory by nature，but is generally"read，"and goes through a continual process of modification and refinement.

·　It is based on logical referential algorism，and largely supported by dialectic methodology.

Because they target different sections of the Australian community，Howard，Beazley and Hanson all use a different range of strategies and techniques in their speeches，to help them achieve their political objectives.Howard's speech，for instance，is generally directed towards the upper-middle classes and business community.His style of speech is rather“abstract”or vague in terms of spoken style.Beazley，on the other hand，targets those members of the public that belong to the middle and lower-middle classes.Accordingly，his style of speech is very different to that of Howard's.On average，his utterances are shorter，while his words are easier to understand and more expressive.This style of speech conveys stronger illocutionary force，and is more readily accepted by ordinary Australians.As for Hanson，in her speech she introduces a new style into modern Australian political discourse.She competently uses many classical rhetoric techniques including citing historical speeches，conversion technique，exaggeration，fear and logical fallacies.She uses such extreme devices to satisfy the ten per cent of disenchanted voters in the country，that mainstream governments have consistently failed to satisfy in any way.