Cormann speaks four languages, but his English is not entirely perfect at times. Credit:Andrew Meares It's drawn immediate support from Pauline Hanson. Asked by Channel Seven what she thought of the proposed test and its associated Australian residency requirement extension from one to four years, the Senator declared: "It's a start in the right direction." Now, I'm as keen as the next person on the idea of a general populace being composed of people who can string two words together and get themselves in and out of shops and social situations without committing some sort of grammatical infelicity. I'm just not sure why, in these circumstances, we would continue to exempt the Senate.

The Upper House's carpet is stained blood-red from the decades of guerrilla warfare various occupants have waged against the English language. This is the hallowed ground upon which Senator Steve Fielding – a broken man, driven to near-madness by his role as Senate balance-of-power wielder in the Rudd years – declared himself to be "torn between two places and a hard rock". This is where Jacqui Lambie stood late last year to deliver her notorious oration about the "anus of proof" implicit in the legislation re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission. (There were sniggers at the time, but with the benefit of six months and some historical perspective it's obvious what the anus of proof is. It's where you put the suppository of all wisdom. Tell me I'm wrong.) This is the carpet on which – in the same week – Finance Minister Mathias Cormann stood to denounce a whole swathe of non-government senators for sabotaging his plans for a new tax on fruitpicking backpackers (a separate measure designed by the government to make life annoying for people who come to Australia with the intention of being useful).

"The Labor Party will wear this like a rose of crowns! The Greens will wear this like a rose of crowns! Senator Culleton, Senator Lambie and Senator Hinch will wear this like a rose of crowns!" he raged. Belgian-born Senator Cormann is a very clever man who speaks four languages including Flemish, and can count very ably, and unlike his portfolio predecessor Barnaby Joyce never ever gets mixed up between millions and billions. But from time to time his English is not entirely perfect, as the above-recounted adaptation of Paul Keating's famous "Crown Of Thorns" curse demonstrates very well. It is possible to be brilliant and useful and still not always perfect in one's delivery. Australians, of course, have quite a bit of form in using language proficiency to control our borders. From 1901 until 1958, our immigration laws included a dictation test, in which border officials could reject any new arrival unable faithfully to write out a 50-word passage in any European language selected by the official. (This test reached its apex of absurdity in November 1934, when visiting anti-Nazi activist and communist Egon Kisch, who spoke ten languages, was bounced by immigration officials in Sydney because he was unable to write The Lord's Prayer in Gaelic.)

Since these dark days, however, it's become a rich local tradition to kidney-punch the English language in the downunders from time to time. The American ethnologist and philologist William Churchill described Australian English as "the most brutal maltreatment which has ever been inflicted upon the mother tongue of the great English-speaking nations". Well, mate, we still came and fought in your wars. And if we choose to employ a certain swashbuckling disregard for the linguistic niceties observed across the modern Commonwealth – hell, if our prime minister calls Canada "Canadia" from time to time – that's our business. Low-level struggles with the English language, it should be said, are not exclusive to politicians. On Thursday, The Australian newspaper came out strongly in favour of the tougher citizenship regime, warning: "Before they are tempted to water down the proposals, especially the English language test, senators need to consider the potential price to national security of setting the bar too low."

At dawn on Friday, the newspaper's online front page shrieked:'I haven't played this bad ever': Thanasi Kokkinakis gives searingly honest assessment of his poor performance as he and Jordan Thompson crash out of Quen's." Loading Dearly beloved: We are a young and fallible country. And if you can't mangle the Quen's English here, where can you? Annabel Crabb is an ABC writer and broadcaster. Twitter: @annabelcrabb