Queenslanders have always seemed a little different. There is Queensland, and then there is the rest of Australia.

I remember visiting in the early 1980’s and being in a bank. When the teller rang my branch in Victoria, and started by saying, “Good morning, this is Queensland calling!”

On the rugby field their state team still has only one battle cry and it is “Queenslander.”

Queensland has always been a land of milk and honey, a paradise of winter crops, sugar cane, rum and cattle. A place where women can be women, and men are men. Even their unique style of houses built on high stumps are called Queenslanders. Houses are mostly freshly painted, churches full on Sundays, governments conservative, and sin confined to the Gold Coast.

Of course I was completely suspect and tarred as a Mexican from south of the border. My car had Victorian number plates, it…