If Finance Minister Mathias Cormann wants to get away from his image as the Terminator of Australian politics, borrowing lines from Arnold Schwarzenegger is the wrong way to go about it.

Mr Cormann risked causing offence on Saturday by using the former California "Governator's" famous political attack line, "economic girly men".

Finance Minister Mathias Cormann: Borrowing lines from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Credit:Wolter Peeters

"The problem that the Labor Party has today is that Bill Shorten is an economic girly man," Mr Cormann told Sky News on Saturday in his trademark European tones, often compared to Austrian-born Mr Schwarzenegger.

Mr Cormann's comment also verged dangerously close to self-parody after the same term was used this week in a skit on ABC comedy show Mad As Hell, with "spokesman for the finance minister" Darius Horsham speaking in a suspiciously similar accent.