* Australian accents come in three main varieties: Cultivated, General, and Broad. Cultivated is pretty close to RP:
1.) Broad: the late Steve Irwin.
2.) General: Australian PM Julia Gillard.
3.) Cultivated: Cate Blanchett. (Blanchett’s somewhat more “British-Sounding” accent may be a result of her being an actress, but her speech nonetheless resembles this type of elevated Australian speech).
* There is a fourth Australian accent: Newscastrix. Somewhere, somehow, there must have been a prominent female newscaster and now they all get diction lessons to mimic this very serious and important way of speaking.
