cardinal numbers in dates

A contributor has noticed that Australian news presenters are often using cardinal numbers instead of ordinal numbers in giving dates.  For example: The meeting will be held on June 5. Canadians and Americans would prefer June 5th.

The Australian Government Style Manual recommends that we should write full dates using cardinal numbers:

Friday 1 May 1997

This follows British usage.

Of course if the year is left out this might be reduced to Friday May 1, or just May 1.

In speech we would usually favour ordinal numbers so May 1 would become May the first. ( May first seems a little unnatural to me.)

So I suppose that someone reading a text that has cardinal numbers could adopt a style of saying exactly what is there — May 1 — rather than extending the date to May the first.  It is shorter, easier and perhaps sounds more modern.

Has anyone else noticed this?