“It's interesting trying to find things distinct in humour. I sat with Wally McReagh and we tried to find jokes that had no American or Australian version. And it is pretty hard. I just throw this one at you, because people say, “Tell us a real Aussie joke”. And of course we can “Aussie-fie” them and we've got our own character and way of telling them, but you'll find that they're universal, from somewhere else. But to me, this is the most Australian story that I know.
“It's about the little boy who didn't talk”.
“ There was this little boy who couldn't or wouldn't talk. As a one year old, he didn't even say “Mummy” or “Daddy” and when he was two he was still absolutely silent. He got to be three years old and by now his parents were frantic.  They were really worried about him. They were country people, lived out of town and he didn't speak. Everything else was fine. He just didn't speak, so they got him checked out but there was not a problem to be found.
Then he was four and still he hadn't spoken. Right through pre-school, not a word. His mother's frantic. In fact she's really upset by this now. And so he goes to school. At school she has all the experts coming in, sitting in the classroom trying to figure out what's wrong with him, without upsetting the kid. This goes on till three days after his sixth birthday. Worried sick, she puts his breakfast in front of him and suddenly he says, “The bloody toast's burnt”. She said, well she didn't say anything, she just gawped at him and he says again, “The bloody toast's burnt”.
So, she cartwheels through the house, she yells, screams, laughs, did somersaults, raced back to him, lifted him from the chair, hugged him and says, “All these years of worry and stress and trauma and you could speak all the time, why so long?”
And he says, “Everything's been alright up until now!”
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