The Ballad of Cockatoo Dock by Andrew Barton Paterson

Of all the docks upon the blue / There was no dockyard, old or new, / To touch the dock at Cockatoo.

Of all the ministerial clan / There was no nicer, worthier man / Than Admiral O'Sullivan.

Of course we mean E. W. / O'Sullivan, the hero who / Controlled the dock at Cockatoo.

To workmen he explained his views -- / "You need not toil unless you choose, / Your only work is drawing screws."

And sometimes to their great surprise / When votes of censure filled the skies / He used to give them all a rise.

-"What odds about a pound or two? " / Exclaimed the great E. W. / O'Sullivan at Cockatoo.

The dockyard superintendent, he / Was not at all what he should be -- / He sneered at all this sympathy.

So when he gave a man the sack / O'Sullivan got on his track / And straightway went and fetched him back.

And with a sympathetic tear / He'd say, "How dare you interfere, / You most misguided engineer?

-"Your sordid manners please amend -- / No man can possibly offend / Who has a Member for a friend.

-"With euchre, or a friendly rub, / And whisky from the nearest 'pub', / We'll make the dockyard like a club.

-"Heave ho, my hearties, play away, / We'll do no weary work today. / What odds -- the public has to pay!

-"And if the public should complain / I'll go to Broken Hill by train / To watch McCarthy making rain."

And there, with nothing else to do / No doubt the great E. W. / Will straightway raise McCarthy's screw.

The Evening News, 9 July 1903