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Australian MPs are being 'praised' for their work in promoting the country's Gold Coast, by allowing photographers to take snaps of them in their swimming trunks.

Recent months have seen an upsurge in the number of politicians photographed coming out of the sea in the southern regions of Victoria and New South Wales, in what Australians call budgie smugglers.

The term comes from the rather unsavoury observation that men in tight swimming trunks look as though they are smuggling a budgie.

Now the MPs have been praised, albeit with tongue in cheek, for sending tourists up north, as the photographs appear to show that the water is colder in the south.

'One factor sure to drive tourists north to the sunny, warm and inviting Gold Coast is that conservative leaders in New South Wales and Victoria have taken to being photographed in their budgie smugglers,' MP Peter Lawlor told state parliament.

'These photos will help drive people north because they prove that the water along the southern coasts is obviously a lot chillier than it is on the Gold Coast.

'The hapless New South Wales and Victorian Liberal leaders, Peter Debnam and Ted Baillieu, have both tried to lift their sagging profiles with the semi-nude shots, emerging James Bond-like from the surf in their Speedos. They have ended up resembling the cast of the movie Calendar Girls,' he added.

Mr Lawlor's comments drew roars of laughter from fellow politicians and some of the semi-naked-MP snaps have been deemed 'disturbing'.

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