Word: queenslanders
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...patrons in Australia's Queensland have long been accustomed to pass the time by tossing burning cigarette butts out the window, or Ping Pong balls, or whatever other small objects come to hand. Outside, likely as not, sits an all-purpose mini garbage-disposal unit called Bufo marinus, and the beer quaffers amuse themselves by watching this undiscriminating toad gobble up almost anything coming...
...ambassadorship to Ireland. What Whitlam saw as a masterly stroke, his opponents, together with most of the Australian press, viewed as a cynical ploy. Whatever it was, the plan backfired. Instead of Gair's seat going to a Whitlam supporter as the Prime Minister expected, the premier of Queensland State used a loophole in the law to put in another conservative. Finally, when the opposition in the Senate, spoiling for a fight, began to carry out its threat to reject a bill essential to provide funds for the day-to-day workings of the government, Whitlam had had enough...
...nearly 150 years, Australia has been trying out-and rejecting-proposed national anthems. Among candidates of the distant past have been such forgettables as the Anthem on Queensland, The Cross and the Great White Star, Fling Out the Flag and Ave Australia. Some Aussies have jokingly suggested that the country should adopt as its national song The Australaise, a down-to-earth, Down Under version of the Marseillaise that is sung to the tune of Onward, Christian Soldiers. These are the words (and the blanks can be filled in according to taste and vocabulary...
...member House of Representatives. In an attempt to capture control of the Senate, Whitlam last month appointed a longtime foe, Senator Vince Gair, former leader of the Democratic Labor Party, as Ambassador to Ireland. The government figured that it would win Gair's vacant seat in Queensland at the May 18 elections, when half of the Senate's 60 seats are voted on. That could be just enough to tip the balance in the Senate in Labor's favor...
...furor mounted, opposition leaders tried to sabotage Whitlam's stratagem. The Country Party premier of Queensland, Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, noticed that by some oversight Gair had not yet officially resigned from the Senate, and immediately published midnight election writs for his seat. This meant, according to the constitution, that the seat would be filled by the Queensland government-therefore by a non-Labor nominee-until the next general election in December 1975. Whitlam's efforts to pick up an extra Senate seat were thus stymied...