Smart Start: Aussie Childhood Rites of Passage Quiz

Answer: Swim

Most Aussie kids learn to swim early. It is included in the early primary school curriculum, but where I lived in North Queensland, most of us could swim before we reached school. I was taken to special classes where I was taught "drown-proofing" by specially trained people. By four I was swimming laps of the local community swimming pool and by eleven I had my first life-saving certificate.

I was so grateful to learn to swim so early. Even today after a tough day at work, there is something magical about being to slow your heart rate down to match the rhythm of your stroke as you glide through cool water.

Answer: How to surf

My father considered learning to surf was an essential part of any childhood. Like most Australian kids we lived near the beach, the only trouble was we lived in Cairns which is protected by the Great Barrier Reef which runs the length of the Queensland coastline south to Gladstone. So when I was four the whole family shipped off to my uncle's place at Christmas time to the Sunshine Coast where the surf was high, 1200 miles south of Cairns, for my uncle and my dad to teach me how to surf.

Every year for his birthday, even though he is eighty now, I send my uncle an Hawaiian shirt or some Surf Music. I reckon I am one of the few kids introduced into music via artists such as Dick Dale, The Ventures and The Atlantics.

Answer: I could read picture books

Of all the skills I learnt in life, learning to read is one I rate the highest. I would read anything and everything, including the cereal packet at breakfast. The world of possibility opened up before me. I read Enid Blyton at six, an atlas at eight and "One flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" at twelve. I copped a ribbing from my mates as I always had a book with me, but in the end they accepted that this was an integral part of me.

My one regret of my present life is that I do not get enough time to read. I have to travel a lot for my work. The first thing I pack is a book (not a Kindle!)

Answer: Rugby League

In Queensland and New South Wales, the most popular football code is Rugby League. There is intense bitter rivalry between New South Wales and Queensland. When I was a kid, NSW would regularly flog Queensland, a much smaller state in terms of population. However in 1980, when they changed the rules Queensland has since been able to demonstrate its sporting superiority.(No bias here on my part!) The rest of the nation predominantly plays Aussie Rules and they look disdainfully towards NSW and Queensland, thinking our code is Un-Australian. (I did rectify this in high school - I played League for school and Aussie Rules for a local club).
Soccer is more popular now than when I was a kid in the 70s but with more than a touch of xenophobia, it was then called the "Immigrant" Code. Rugby Union is played in all states but it would be the fourth code.
American and Gaelic Football have small but loyal followings.

Answer: How to throw a boomerang

The boomerang is a distinctly Australian icon. Learning to throw one so it returns is difficult and demands patience and perseverance. Fortunately for us, one of the boys who accompanied the elders was a boy in our class. After the demonstration and our inability to get a boomerang to come back, we asked our classmate for extra lessons on the following weekends. Eventually we got it right and a couple of us could return a boomerang thrown with both left and right hands (There are left- and right- hand boomerangs), a skill which I have passed onto all my children.

Making friends with an aborigine in 1970's Australian culture was somewhat controversial, sadly. However, my boomerang throwing classmates stayed mates for life but our aboriginal mate succumbed to premature chronic health problems and died prematurely at 51.

PS. You can't hunt for koalas in Australia... but dropbears are not.
In Australia we cannot understand the concept of a Frisbee. A boomerang can be thrown and caught by the same person. A Frisbee needs another person to catch it then throw it back. Sort of like a boomerang that won;t come back. We have a name for a boomerang that won't come back - it's called a stick.

Answer: Pikelets, Lamingtons, ANZAC Biscuits and Pavlova

I was taught the basics: meat, fish, vegetables, "rice and pasta the proper way". I also learned to make sweet things like pikelets (small sweet pancakes), Lamingtons (square sponge cakes covered with chocolate and coconut) and Pavlova (Meringue filled with cream and fruit). I did not realise the latter were distinctly Australian - they were an everyday part of our diet (Pavlova only on special occasions, though).

I was ashamed that I resented being taught how to cook. I never told my mates as cooking was not considered appropriate for a boy. Thankfully this biased view dissipated before too long. I would like to think that I taught both my wives how to cook (they might disagree) but I certainly taught how to teach my children how to cook. I am pleased they now have recipes that include, in their terms, "Dad's scrambled eggs" and "Dad's spaghetti bog".

Answer: I had to wear shoes

In Cairns it was considered too hot to wear shoes. We just walked in bare feet everywhere which was considered (then) as normal. I did have a pair of shoes (sandals) for church and school photography day. In high school, a uniform was compulsory. Stubbornly, I would walk bare foot to school with my shoes in my hand and put shoes and socks on just before walking through the school gate. In the afternoon, I would reverse the procedure. In high school you got your first pair of football boots. Up to then we had played footy barefoot.

To this day, if you come to our place in Brisbanethere is a pile of shoes on our doorstep. Unlike Japanese houses where it is polite to remove shoes before entering, our family can't wait to get their shoes off when they get home.

All other options are fictional.

Answer: Made meals and sold them to "flooded families" who did not have power

Nothing rallies Australians like a disaster. Bushfires, floods and cyclones are de rigueur for us. When people are affected, the unaffected will pitch in and help. I was part of a boy scout troop, armed with shovels and hoses who literally hosed out the mud out of flooded houses. Our family billeted another family until their house was habitable again (some weeks), we had three extra dogs and a cat (who might have survived the floods but was lucky to survive living in a house with four dogs). Everybody who was not flooded made meals for every body who was - I was part of the brigade that distributed them. Just after Christmas the same year, when Darwin was evacuated after being flattened by Cyclone Tracy, we repeated the process.

We didn't think anything of it at the time. It was something that just had to be done, but today, an almost innate sense of community that we all seem to share is what makes me proud to be an Australian.

Answer: I had to cut sugar cane with a cane knife

Sugar is grown in Tropical Queensland as far south as Gympie.
When I was young there were still a few farms that cut sugar cane by hand. You had a large tool somewhat like a machete and you had to cut eight foot high cane at the base. I was taken to a farmer who my father knew from when we lived in Cairns. I was shown three lines of cane that were at least a quarter of a mile long, one line having already had its first 20 yards cut. There were two other farm workers. We were told we could stop for lunch when we had cut all three lines cut. I was given the shorter line and told to keep up. I couldn't, and by the time the two farm hands had finished I was still eighty yards short. They came and helped me and we all had lunch together but it was shorter than normal because of my lack of speed. After lunch we were given another three lines, just as long as before but there was no shorter line this time. We could stop when we were done. The other two were told I had to finish myself. It was dark when I finished (The farmer came and shone a torch for the last twenty yards but he did not offer to cut my cane).

I was paid for my work (by weight not time) and I was given the knife as a present. My hands bled from burst blisters, I was sunburnt and my back ached for days but I learned what my father meant by "the dignity of work".

I keep the knife in a cupboard in my office. I look at when I have had a "bad" day as opposed to a hard day to remind me what work really means.

(My staff think it is something like "Speak softly [which I do] and carry a big stick". I do not dissuade them).

By the way, I did all the other jobs when I was at university.

Answer: I could do every one of these

The drinking laws in Australia were standardised at 18 in 1974 when Queensland and Tasmania followed other states. (However there is periodic public support to raise the legal drinking age to 21 years again).

Driver's licence age varies from state to state but by 18 you can drive be licensed in any state, at least on a provisional licence.

Voting in Australia is compulsory for anyone over 18. Most Australians take their ability to vote seriously and take their enrolment on the Electoral Register as a rite of passage. Also you can actually be elected to state or federal parliaments once you turn 18.