For Better or Worse - Australian Prime Ministers Quiz

Answer:

Some individual tidbits: Of the incorrect answers, Bjelke-Petersen and Kirner were State Premiers, Kerr was a Governor-General, Chipp the original leader of the Democrats, Stott-Despoja was also a Democrat leader and in 1971 Bonner was the first Aboriginal Australian to become a member of Parliament.

Barnard, Cairns, Anderson, Fischer and Joyce were Deputy PMs who acted as the head cheese but never got the gong on a full-time basis. Keen observers may remember Barnaby Joyce as the Minister who waded into the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard smuggling their dogs into Australia biosecurity breach saga, with the sledgehammer approach of suggesting the problem could be solved by putting the dogs down! It was dubbed by the Australian press as the "war on terriers".

Prime Ministers: Frank Forde was the shortest serving PM, 19 days. Sir Robert Menzies is the longest serving (18 years, 163 days over two separate stints). Earle Page is included as he has the same name as my first supervisor when I started work (told you these were tidbits...). Edmund Barton was the first PM following Federation in 1901.

Andrew Fisher and Alfred Deakin both served three non-contiguous stints as PM between 1903 and 1915.

Harold Holt drowned in 1967 when swimming alone in heavy seas (imagine any country's leader going for a swim, alone, these days) - in true Australian style, a newly built swimming pool in Glen Iris, Melbourne, was promptly named after him!

In 1986, Malcolm Fraser wandered into a foyer of a seedy Memphis hotel wearing nothing but a towel, he was also missing his Rolex, passport and wallet. To his dying day he denied knowing exactly what had happened.

Paul Keating is remembered in part for his question time retorts in Parliament - among his comments that are publishable in FunTrivia, are: "I am not like the Leader of the Opposition. I did not slither out of the Cabinet room like a mangy maggot." "Unless (Mr Hewson) is in with a question in his hand written by someone on his staff, he's useless." "The Opposition crowd could not raffle a duck in a pub." "You boxhead you wouldn't know. You are flat out counting past 10. You stupid, foul-mouthed grub." "Well, the thing about poor old Costello, he's all tip and no iceberg, you know."