SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd admits he has a reputation as a nerd - but he doesn't seem to mind.

The buttoned-down, bespectacled leader whose lofty rhetoric and slight stiffness in public sometimes give him the aura of a schoolteacher was asked on radio yesterday how he would spend a cash payout the government is handing out to most Australians.

"Some people have accused me of being a nerd from central casting," Rudd replied during a talk radio segment on the youth station Nova.