Aussie Achievers Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bob Jane

Born Robert Frederick "Bob" Jane in 1929, this Brunswick (Victoria) entrepreneur started in the 1950s with a company distributing parts for Jaguar and Alfa Romeo which he called Bob Jane Autoland. He also entered competitive car racing and had some impressive wins in the Armstrong 500 (later known as the Bathurst 1000) before an ongoing back problem caused him to retire from competitive motor racing in 1981 and pour all of his energy into expanding his chain of tyre retailers, Bob Jane T-Marts.

Answer: David Hicks

Born 1974 in Adelaide, South Australia, David Matthew Hicks was expelled from high school when he was fourteen and became a drifter, picking up work wherever he could all over Australia. Shortly before travelling to Albania in 1999 and joining the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) he converted to Islam and became known as Muhammed Dawood. On returning to Australia his application to join the Australian Army was rejected.

He then travelled to Pakistan to train with Lashkar-e-Taiba and in December 2001 was captured in Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance and eventually transported to Guantanamo Bay as an enemy combatant.

Answer: John Singleton

Born 9 November 1941 in Enfield, New South Wales, "Singo" started SPASM in the late 1960s with Dunc McAllan, Rob Palmer and Mike Strauss and was hugely successful with his larrikin working-class man advertising style. SPASM was sold in 1973 to an American company (Doyle Dane Bernbach) and after a while working for DDB as Managing Director of Australian operations Singleton started up his very own "John Singleton Advertising" in 1985. Since then, he has amassed considerable interests in radio broadcasting and thoroughbred horse breeding and racing.

Answer: Sir John Holland

Sir John Holland AC (1914-2009), civil engineer, founded the John Holland Construction Group (later known as John Holland (Holdings) Pty Ltd) in 1949 following active service in World War II. He remained active in the company (now owned by Leighton Holdings Limited) until his death.

Although named Clifton Vaughan Holland, he acquired the nickname "John" when he was young and was always known by that name thereafter. His first client was a Victorian farmer named Malcolm Fraser who would later become the Prime Minister of Australia. From building a shed for Mr Fraser, John Holland went on to build many masterpieces and was knighted in 1973 for services to engineering.

He was also awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 1988 for service to the community.

Answer: Mark Chopper Read

Mark Brandon Read (1954-2013), aka Mark Chopper Read, was born in Melbourne, Victoria and was convicted of armed robbery, assault and kidnapping. During his time in prison, his ears were cut off by a fellow inmate and he also contracted hepatitis C. He walked free in 1998 and made a living from writing and being a popular talk show guest.

In 2000 a film based on Chopper's life was made starring Eric Bana as Read. Shortly before dying of liver cancer, Read confessed to the "New York Times" that he had killed "probably about four or seven" people.

Answer: Mary Donaldson

Mary Elizabeth Donaldson was born in 1972 in Hobart and she obtained a combined degree in Commerce and Law (BCom, LLB) from the University of Tasmania in 1995. Mary and Frederik met at the Slip Inn, a Sydney pub, during the prince's visit at the time of the 2000 Summer Olympics.

At that time Mary was sales director for Belle Property, an estate agency specialising in luxury property. Their engagement was announced in 2003 and they were married in 2004. Her marriage to Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark conferred upon her the title Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat, RE.

They have four children, the first of whom, Prince Christian Valdemar Henri John, born 15 October 2005, is the heir apparent to the throne of Denmark.

Answer: Rupert Murdoch

Keith Rupert Murdoch was born in 1931 in Melbourne, Australia, and chose to be known as Rupert (after his maternal grandfather). Educated at Oxford, he inherited the family business, News Limited, on the death of his father in 1952. Its main asset at that time was the "Adelaide News", but under Rupert's direction the family business grew by 2000 into a massive global media empire with a net worth of over $5 billion. Rupert became a naturalised US citizen in 1985 and it was there that he met and married Wendi Deng, his third wife, in 1990. Rupert was 23 years older than his first wife, Patricia, and 38 years older than Wendi. Following News Corporation's phone hacking scandals of 2011, as well as bribery and corruption investigations, Rupert resigned as director of News International in 2012 and filed for divorce in 2013.

Answer: Blanche d'Alpuget

Hazel Hawke had tolerated her husband's relationship with Blanche d'Alpuget whilst he was Prime Minister (it was one of many in his nine years as Prime Minister of Australia), but things changed after 1991. In that year, Paul Keating successfully challenged Bob's leadership and the great man stepped down as Prime Minister and sat on the backbenches before precipitating a by-election with his resignation from Parliament entirely on 20 February 1992. Hazel and Bob divorced in 1995 and he married Blanche shortly afterwards.

Answer: Germaine Greer

Born in Melbourne in 1939, Germaine Greer was educated at a private convent school and gained a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. As an academic and journalist she gained global fame for writing the "The Female Eunuch" in 1970. In defining herself as a "liberator" of women, her brand of feminism has very little to do with equal pay and opportunity.

In 1999 she wrote "The Whole Woman", a sequel to her 1970 best-seller, and concluded that the feminist movement had put women into double jeopardy and caused them much suffering by achieving nothing more than fake equality. What's needed, according to Greer, is true liberation.

Hence her passion for polemics.

Answer: Tim Mathieson

Timothy Raymond Mathieson was born in 1957 in Shepparton, Victoria. He trained as a hairdresser and operated various salons before meeting Julia Gillard in 2004 at a Melbourne salon called Heading Out. At that time, Tim was a divorcé with three adult children.

He first gained public scrutiny in 2006 when Julia became Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party, and then global scrutiny in 2010 when she became Australia's first female Prime Minister (and he became Australia's First "Bloke").