The Australian prime minister's speech at Davos struck a familiar tone and was criticised for being inappropriately partisan. So does he stick to the same themes whoever the audience? We compare four speeches in wordle form

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tony Abbott's speech to the World Economic Forum as a wordle. Photograph: The Guardian

In prime minister Tony Abbott’s most recent speech to the assembled heads of state at the World Economic Forum at Davos, he urged the world’s government to get out of the way of businesses while having a dig at Australia’s previous Labor government for their spending habits.It felt like we might have heard it before. Guardian Australia has compared four of Abbott’s major speeches since the election campaign kicked off in August last year to see what words he most often uses and if there is really that big a difference in each of his speeches. A wordle shows in graphic form which words in a speech are used most frequently. The bigger the word appears in the "word cloud", the more often it has been repeated. Perhaps unsurprisingly, but also somewhat ironically for a prime minister in favour of small government, the word “government” was one of the most frequently repeated words in the speeches we compared. Tax, Labor, Australia and people were also hot contenders for his most-used word, as the four wordles below reveal.

In the analysis of Abbott’s World Economic Forum address, he threw around the words infrastructure, global, trade, Australia and G20 the most.



Smaller mentions went to strengthen, sustainable, India and China. They were the only other countries to score a mention in the wordle, though Brisbane also got a look in. One could speculate on what Queensland’s capital has in common with India and China, but the more boring (and honest) answer is that it is hosting November’s G20 summit.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tony Abbott’s address at the Coalition's election 2013 campaign launch as a wordle. Photograph: The Guardian

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tony Abbott's address to Tasmania's Liberal party council as a wordle. Photograph: The Guardian

Moving on to Abbott’s address at the Coalition's election 2013 campaign launch , Labor was the third most mentioned word, demonstrating Abbott's highly negative style of campaigning.

When Abbott travelled to Tasmania, he quite astutely mentioned the state in his address to the state’s Liberal party council more than he talked about any other state or territory in Australia. People, government and tax continued to be favoured topics.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tony Abbott's address to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry annual dinner as a wordle. Photograph: The Guardian

The final speech we put through wordle was the address to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry annual dinner. No prizes for guessing that business was a top word in that particular outing. Not one for surprising people, Abbott's other most-used words were government, people, Australia and of course, tax.