Where is she from? I know she's from Wales originally, but where in oz do people speak like that? It's like an Australian accent x 100000000
Here is a nice little background on Julia, in short she grew up in Adelaide, which would explain her accent a bit, Each state has a slightly different accent, and the city and country accents can also differ a bit too. She is now from the Western Suburbs of Melbourne though, only about 30-45min from where I live.
Here is a link to her political biography:
http://www.alp.org.au/federal-government/labor-people/julia-gillard/I can't say exactly were she gets her accent from though because her parents still sound very Welsh, so it has to be a combination of where she grew up, and the people she worked around, I've noticed tradespeople tend to have a more typical accent.
I still think it is put on though, does anyone else think it sounds a bit forced or fake?
I find it curious that there hasn't been a homogenization of a country's population.
Prior to national radio/television broadcasting it seems quite likely there would be little influence on a region's dialect.
But once widespread audio communication became commonplace I would have expected the differences to diminish.
Even though it's been 70 years (or more) I find (in the U.S. at least) the regional languages as strong as ever.
I think it has to do with the fact that while they do come in contact with people from a different country or region more frequently, the majority of their interactions are going to be with people that speak the same language/dialect and with the same accent.
I guess another good example would be Europe, almost every country and some regions can have a very distinct accent and even dialect. And they've been constantly interacting over thousands of years.
