Aussie band in deep water

THIS week, I read a piece in our local newspaper, funnily enough - The Leader - about a legal wrangle going on round these parts.

It seems the 1981 number one hit for Aussie band, Men at Work, has landed itself in a right bucketful of hot water over a publishing rights pickle.

More than 20 years after hitting the right note on the international hit parade, it has come to light that the catchy flute ditty used in the song actually comes from Marion Sinclair's original song - Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree - that made its debut at the world Scout Jamboree held in Frankston, just a stone's throw up the road from us here, back in 1935. Even Lord Baden Powell himself was there to witness the song's showcase.

For such a high profile song that was also performed during the closing ceremony to the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney alongside Paul Hogan of Croc Dundee fame and then at the Australia Unites Victorian Bushfire Appeal Telethon, I'm just wondering where the federal court has been until now - some two decades on - before lodging their disdain at the band's attempt at plagiarism...