Cliche of the Week 128 – Sugar Hit

In search of a sugar hit. Will it be chocolate or cake or politics?

A new form of sickly sweet has been appearing in news pages recently, most of them in Australia.

The phrase ‘sugar hit’ is a shorthand to describe Kevin Rudd’s impact on voters with his return to the top job in Canberra.

 “They point out that polls show the Coalition would still win the election and argue the ‘sugar hit’ of Rudd’s return is almost certain to dissipate in the weeks ahead. Attacks have an edge of shrill intensity.” (The Australian Financial Review, July 6)

“The poll figures in the weeks ahead, which will show whether the sudden surge in support is a short-lived sugar hit and in danger of falling away, will be the key to the election decision.” (The Australian, July 1)

“There were predictions of course of a sugar hit for Labor, it seems to have got it.” (ABC Radio, July 1) 

Chris Pash’s book, The Last Whale , a true story set in the 1970s about Australia’s last whaling station and the activists who fought to close it, was published by Fremantle Press in 2008.