More Noteworthy Australians Trivia Quiz

Answer: Parliament House

The new notes are vastly superior to the old paper money for several reasons. They are a lot more rugged: the lifespan of a paper $1 bill was only a few weeks, compared to ten years or more for the plastic notes. They also have many inbuilt anti-counterfeit measures, such as miniscule background words and pictures, watermarks, images in transparent windows, and more.

Answer: Poet

Banjo Paterson may have worked as all the options listed but Dame Mary Gilmore was a poet and a journalist. She was a champion of the workers and the oppressed. While she was inspired mostly by Henry Lawson, it was A. G. Stephens, literary editor of "The Bulletin", who published her verse and established her reputation as a feisty radical poet.
Gilmore's first volume of poetry was published in 1910 but in 1908 she became women's editor of "The Worker", the newspaper of Australia's largest (at the time) and most powerful trade union, the Australian Workers' Union (AWU). She was the union's first woman member. "The Worker" gave her a voice for her journalism, in which she campaigned for better working conditions for working women, for children's welfare and for better conditions for the indigenous Australians. During World War II she wrote stirring patriotic verse such as "No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest".
The Australian $10 note, featuring her portrait also includes an illustration inspired by "No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest" and, as part of the clear window featured on all Australian banknotes (copy-protection micro-print), the text of the poem itself.
Besides the banknote, Dame Mary Gilmore is honoured by an Australian postage stamp and a Canberra suburb is named after her.
Submitted by 1nn1 who was old enough to remember the introduction of decimal currency (just!) but not old enough to meet Dame Mary Gilmore.

Answer: The Man from Snowy River

The entire poem is printed, interspersed randomly with the words 'Ten Dollars'.
The first few lines are enough to stir the heart of many older Aussies, and I heartily commend them to anyone playing this quiz.

"There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses - he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray."

'Waltzing Matilda' is an unofficial national anthem, and tells the tale of a sheep thief who drowns himself when confronted by the law. I think that I can safely say that no other anthem in the world would have a similar story!

'The Drover's Wife' is a short story by Paterson's contemporary, Henry Lawson, and tells of the hardships of life in the bush. 'The Loaded Dog' is also by Lawson and is a very funny story involving a dog and a stick of dynamite.

Contributed by ozzz2002, a farmer's son.

Answer: Royal Flying Doctor Service

While John Flynn is primarily known for his work establishing the RFDS, his work extended well beyond that.
He pioneered the opening of many bush hospitals in the outback and established the Travelling Ministries which saw ministers ride on horseback across inland Australia.
Flynn was awarded the OBE in 1933 and has a suburb in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) named in his honour.

Submitted By Tarrox.

Answer: Dame Nellie Melba

While all those named were "singers of some note", bringing Australian musical culture to the world stage, it is Dame Nellie who was honoured on the $100 note. Her name is commemorated in such diverse things as Melba Hall, the music hall at Melbourne University, the Canberra suburb of Melba, and the French dessert Peach Melba.

Her farewell tour commenced in 1924, but she kept performing until shortly before her death, aged 69, in 1931. This led to the expression "More comebacks than Nellie Melba", a colourful addition to the vernacular still in use today.

Question by mctavish99

Answer: Western Australia

Edith Cowan won the seat of West Perth in the Western Australia Legislative Assembly in 1921, only one year after women were given the right to be elected to parliament. She was a social activist campaigner and politician and the first woman to be elected to the Australian Parliament.
Discovering the plight of women and children, she became actively involved with reforming laws for women & children and formed the Child Protection Society.
She generously gave her free time to various organizations committed to improving the lives Of many women and children. Edith died on 9th June 1932.

Submitted by Tarrox

Answer: Sir Henry Parkes

Sir Henry Parkes was Premier of the colony of New South Wales on five separate occasions between May 1872 and October 1891, as a member of the Free Trade Party (he was not affiliated with any party for his first three terms). He is not only one of the Founding Fathers of the Commonwealth of Australia, he has been labelled the Father of the Australian Federation. The six British colonies were -- New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia (which also administered the Northern Territory), Western Australia and Tasmania.

As Premier of NSW he invited the premiers of the other colonies to a conference in October 1889. At this conference he called for a convention "to devise the constitution which would be necessary for bringing into existence a federal government with a federal parliament for the conduct of national undertaking". From there he convened the 1890 Federation Conference; and the 1891 National Australasian Convention followed (the colony of New Zealand attended, but in the end chose not to join as a member state of the new nation). This convention saw the first draft of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia (the name of the new nation was chosen by Sir Henry Parkes). Further conventions were held during the 1890s.

He did not live to see the birth of a new nation, which arrived on 1st January 1901. He died in April 1896 at the age of 80. The constitution of the new nation was an act of the UK Parliament viz. Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900. It was passed by the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and then signed by Queen Victoria on 9th July 1900, following referendums held throughout the colonies in the late 1890s.

Sir George Reid co-founded the Free Trade Party with Sir Henry Parkes. He was Premier of NSW from August 1894 to September 1899 and subsequently became Australia's fourth Prime Minister, from August 1904 to July 1905 (in both instances, as leader of the Free Trade Party).
Sir Edmund Barton was Australia's first Prime Minister, from January 1901 to September 1903, when he resigned from parliament to join the bench of the newly formed High Court of Australia. (There were three judges on the first bench; there are now nine). He was a supporter of federation, attended the conventions and conferences convened by Sir Henry Parkes (plus those of the late 1890s), and participated in the drafting of the constitution.
SIR Sammuel Griffith was the first Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia. He was previously Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland (appointed March 1893). Before that he was Premier of the colony of Queensland from November 1883 to June 1888. He was a supporter of federation and attended the conventions and conferences convened by Sir Henry Parkes, plus those of the late 1890s. (Sir Henry Parkes was President and Sir Samuel Griffith was Vice-President of the 1891 National Australasian Convention).
[submitted by gtho4 ]

Answer: She was transported as a convict.

At the age of fourteen, Mary was convicted of stealing a horse, and sentenced to seven years in the penal colony. At the time of the theft, she was disguised as a boy, and her true identity was only revealed at her trial.

When she was seventeen, she married Thomas Reibey, a successful trader, and one of the first businessmen in the colony not to have come from the military. Together they grew their business empire, which Mary continued to manage and grow after her husband's death, at the same time raising their seven children single-handed. When she died, she was one of the wealthiest persons in Australia, her convict past well behind her.

Question submitted by mctavish99

Answer: Sir John Monash

Born in Melbourne to Jewish parents from Germany, the family moved to country New South Wales, where the 14-year-old John supposedly met the bushranger Ned Kelly. Recognising his prodigious academic talents, the family moved back to Melbourne to further John's schooling. He completed matriculation at the very young age of 14 and then attended the university of Melbourne graduating with degrees in arts, science, engineering and law. He worked as a civil engineer for many years.

Despite his German origins, he was readily accepted as an army officer at the outbreak of World War I. He rose rapidly through the ranks, seeing action in many areas, including the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. By 1917, he was a major-general and in recognition of his talents, in May 1918 was given charge of the entire Australian Corps. He was knighted for his services to the allied war effort and was extremely popular with both troops and the civilian public.

After the war, he made extremely impressive contributions to civil life, especially in his home state of Victoria. He combined his talents in engineering with a profound ability for organisation and planning to help establish the electrical energy security for the state.

After his death in October 1931, there were an estimated 250,000 mourners at his funeral - at that time the largest funeral crowd in Australia's history.

Monash University is named in his honor, as is the Monash Freeway, the Canberra suburb of Monash and the Sir John Monash Science High School, which opened in 2010.

-contributed by MikeMaster99, who has seen pictures of $100 notes!

Answer: Unaipon invented a more effective shearing machine

(Incidentally, $50 notes are known as pineapples, presumably due to their yellow color resembling the color of ripe pineapple flesh).
David Unaipon (born David Ngunaitponi, lived 28 September 1872-7 February 1967, was an indigenous Australian of the Ngarrindjeri people, a preacher, inventor and writer. Unaipon's contribution to Australian society helped to break many indigenous Australian stereotypes.
He was a prolific inventor, had 19 provisional patents, his most famous being a shearing machine that converted curvilineal motion into the straight line movement which is the basis of modern mechanical shears. He was also a published author, an expert on ballistics and a strong advocate for indigenous rights. The picture of the mission on the banknote is Point McLeay Mission on the banks of Lake Alexandrina in the Coorong region of South Australia where he was born and later buried.

(Submitted by 1nn1, who quite likes pineapples)