mia-mia - a temporary shelter of the Aborigines, usually a simple frame of branches covered with bark, leaves or grass. It is also used in Australian English to describe a temporary shelter erected by a traveller. The earliest evidence for the word mia is from Nyungar in Western Australia (it first recorded in 1833). The term was applied indiscriminately to a small piece of bark of the melaleuca made to hold small fish and frogs; or to a shelter made from small sticks, rudely stuck into the ground and covered with large pieces of the same material. There is much later evidence of this form from Western Australia in word lists of the Nyungar language, but the reduplicated form (i.e. mia-mia) appears in only one late-nineteenth century source. Moreover, the Western Australian word does not appear in Australian English contexts until the twentieth century. In the Victorian records the word is variously spelt, often with a final m, and most commonly in the reduplicated form: mai-mai, miam-miam, myam-myam, mya-mya, etc. (it is first recorded in 1836). But the word does not appear in other collections of the vocabulary of the Wathawurung and Wuywurung peoples. And yet from 1837 it appears in many Victorian newspapers, journals, and books. It was a term, it seems, known to all people in the new settlements of Melbourne and Geelong. The editors of Australian Aboriginal Words in English came to the conclusion that mia-mia must have originated in Western Australia, and was brought across to Victoria by non-indigenous people. The basic question is whether this is credible. But from early in the nineteenth century, whalers and sealers moved regularly along the southern coast of Australia, from Western Australia to Victoria and Tasmania, and if there is any credibility in the story that mia-mia comes from Western Australia, it is only these whalers and sealers who could have passed it on. But there are further problems with the Western Australian story. In addition to the fact that in Western Australia the reduplicated form appears only in one late example, in none of the Western Australian examples is there the final m that is so common in the Victorian examples. Moreover, why would a group of Victorian Aborigines have the need for a new word to describe an object they had no doubt used, and already had a word for, for thousands of years?

Miali - Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory.

Mick - 1. a Roman Catholic. 2. an Irishman.

Mickey Mouse - 1. (rhyming slang) grouse; wonderful; excellent. 2. childish; unsophisticated; shoddy; cheap.

micky - an unbranded, uncastrated calf approaching one year of age.

micro oven - a panel van (does a chick in three minutes).

mid-oceanic ridges - occur on the ocean bed, where lava erupts out of long fissures running for hundreds of thousands of kilometres across the major ocean floors. Basalt magma from deep within the earth flows up to the ocean floor and out through long fissures or volcanic vents, forming new oceanic crust. Mid-oceanic ridges are only visible above the sea floor at a few places, such as Iceland and the Australian Territory of Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean.

middies - women's shoes with small heels.

middling - 1. fairly well in health. 2. second-rate; so-so; mediocre.

middy - a measure of beer: 10 ounces for New South Wales, 7 ounces for WA or 284 ml.

midge - 1. a small person. 2. biting sandfly - the tiny, two-winged flies that breed in the inter-tidal zone.

midstorey - in a forest, those plants that form an intermediate height between the canopy or sub-canopy and the understorey.

midsummer madness - foolishness; extreme folly.

miffed - annoyed; irritated offended.

miffy - offended; sensitive; easily upset.

Migratory Birds Ordinance 1980 - gives effect to the agreement between the government of Australia and the government of Japan for the Protection of Migratory Birds and Birds in Danger of Extinction and their Environment (JAMBA), signed in 1974 and ratified in 1981. JAMBA obliges respective governments to take measures to preserve and enhance the environment of birds protected by the agreement, and to prevent damage to such birds and their environment. The Migratory Birds Ordinance 1980 also gives effect to the agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the People's Republic of China for the Protection of Migratory Birds and their Environment (CAMBA). This agreement was ratified in August 1988.

Milingimbi Community - an Aboriginal community approximately 500km east of Darwin and 250km west of Nhulunbuy, Milingimbi is situated on an island a half kilometre off the mainland and forms part of the Crocodile Island Group. A restricted (dry) traditional community, the combined populations of the Homelands and Milingimbi community has approximately 1000 residents in about 13 clan groups. There are approximately 50 non-Aboriginal residents. There are six established outstations but housing shortages, drinking water and access determine the level of occupation. Located in the Northern Territory.

Milirrpum v. Nabalco - the first Aboriginal land rights case: a Federal Court action taken by the Yolngu people against the Nabalco Corporation, which had secured a twelve-year mining lease from the federal government. The plaintiffs claimed they held sovereign rights over the land and sought declarations to occupy the land free from interference pursuant to their native title rights. Justice Blackburn found that Yolngu could not prevent mining on their lands because Australia was legally terra nullius. Blackburn held that native title was not part of the law of Australia; that if it had ever existed, native title rights were now extinguished; and even if extinguishment had not occurred, the plaintiffs were unable to prove the elements required to establish native title. However, the judge did acknowledge the claimants' ritual and economic use of the land, and that they had an established system of law. This last point was to become the grounds on which the legal fiction of terra nullius was voided, two decades later, in the Mabo case.

milk a car - extract or siphon petrol out of the tank of a car.

milk bar - corner shop where many general purpose items may be purchased, such as bread, milk, confectionery, newspapers etc.

milk the till - to steal, pilfer money from a cash register where one is employed.

milk-sop - 1. effeminate man; coward; weakling. 2. spiritless, dull, boring person; fuddy-duddy.

milkie/milko - a milkman; person who sells or delivers milk.

milking bail - "bailed up" was used to describe a confined animal, a “bail” being a wooden bar or frame that held an animal in a stall. Dairy farmers still talk about putting a cow into a “milking bail”. Used in this sense the word “bail” comes from the same source as the bails in cricket - apparently from an Old French word meaning “a horizontal piece of wood fixed upon two stakes”.

milkmaid - Burchardia umbellata (family: Liliaceae), widely distributed in the south-west of WA. Among Aborigines, plant roots were important vegetable foods, and in Australia's south-east Burchardia umbellata was such a food source. Its long tuberous roots were available all year round and were cooked before eating.

milky plum - Persoonia falcata, a small tree that is very common in the open woodlands and forests in northern Australia. The fruit are often seen in large numbers, forming a carpet under larger trees. The plums remain green when ripe, but become soft to the touch; they have an unusual taste and the skin is often spat out. The tree fruits in the late dry and early wet from October to March. This plant is also used for a number of medicinal purposes. A leaf infusion may be taken internally to treat coughs, diarrhoea and chest infection; alternatively, a few leaves may be chewed. An eye wash is made from scrapings of inner wood and inner bark boiled in water and then strained. A bark infusion is also used to treat ear disorders. The hard timber is used to make boomerangs, woomeras, axe handles and vclap sticks.

Millaa Millaa - one of the most spectacular regions of the Atherton and Evelyn Tablelands in North Queensland. (Millaa Millaa is Aboriginal for 'lots of water'). The falls in the district feature clear mountain water which cascades over dramatic volcanic basalt drops, legacy from an ancient volcanic past. Located 60k from Innisfail.

Millstream Falls National Park - the widest falls in Australia, spilling over an old basalt lava flow. Here in the rain shadow of the eastern Great Dividing Range, the dry open woodland vegetation offers a stark contrast to the rainforest only kilometres away. This park was the site of an army camp during World War II and is located 3.5km past Ravenshoe on the Mt Garnet Road.

Millstream-Chichester National Park - most of the 200,000ha park in Western Australia is a landscape of rolling hills, spectacular escarpments and winding, tree-lined watercourses. The Chichester Range rises sharply from the coastal plain and includes rocky peaks, tranquil gorges, and hidden rock pools such as Python Pool. Scattered white-barked gums and spiky spinifex clumps cover the stony plateau, which gradually slopes down to the bed of the Fortescue River. In the midst of this landscape is the remarkable oasis of Millstream, where fresh water springs from an aquifer to create the lushly tropical Chinderwarriner Pool. Paperbark and palm trees surround this deep pool on the Fortescue River. Previously two separate parks, the area was expanded into one park in 1982, and it has significant natural, recreational and cultural values. The broad area of land straddling the Fortescue River, from the Hamersley Range through to the Chichester Escarpment is the homeland of the Yinjibarndi people. Ngarrari (Millstream) was an important campsite for inter-tribal meetings. Visitors camped beside Chinderwarriner Pool, where they feasted on fresh fish and edible plant roots, harvested wood for spears and collected rocks for ritual purposes. Millstream was named in 1861 by the explorer F T Gregory, who reported its favourable grazing prospects. The pastoral lease, first taken up in 1865, changed hands several times before Les Gordon assumed management of the property in 1923. In its heyday the station covered more than 400,000 hectares and ran 55,000 sheep.

Milne, William - was born the son of a Glasgow merchant on 17 May, 1822. He left Scotland in 1839 to emigrate to the South Australia. Milne took over the wine business of Patrick Auld in 1857 and joined the SA Parliament in 1857, representing Onkaparinga until 1868. In 1869 he was elected to the Legislative Council and knighted. It was his support for the Torrens Real Property Act and a Bill for the construction of the Overland Telegraph Line which persuaded the SA Government to recognise his contribution by naming the ‘Hundred of Milne’ after him in the Northern Territory in 1871. The Honorable William Milne became President of the Legislative Council in 1875 and died in South Australia in 1895.

Milo - a very popular chocolate-flavored drink powder, usually made with hot milk.

Mimi spirits - in Dreamtime legends, the Mimi spirits are tall, thin beings that live in the rocky escarpment of northern Australia as spirits. Before the coming of Aboriginal people they had human forms. The Mimi are generally harmless but on occasion can be mischievous. When Aboriginal people first came to northern Australia, the Mimi taught them how to hunt and cook kangaroos and other animals. They also did the first rock paintings and taught Aboriginal people how to paint.

mimosa - 1. any leguminous shrub of the genus Mimosa, especially M. pudica, having globular usually yellow flowers and sensitive leaflets which droop when touched. 2. any of various acacia plants with showy yellow flowers.

mince pies - (rhyming slang) eyes.

mince/mince-meat - ground meat; hamburger.

mind (one's) p's and q's - make an effort to speak, behave well, properly; refrain from using vulgar language.

mind out - watch out; look out.

Minerals Council of Australia - a national industry body representing the Australian minerals industry. It replaced the Australian Mining Industry Council in 1995.

Mingginda - an Aboriginal people of the area around modern-day Mount Isa, Queensland.

mingil - 1. pituri. 2. okiri.

mingy - mean; stingy; miserly; parsimonious.

minister/minister of state - a member of parliament who is also member of the executive government, and who is usually in charge of a government department.

ministerial responsibility - a doctrine providing that Ministers are responsible for government policies and actions of public servants in administering policy and making decisions. See also responsible government and Westminster system.

Ministerial Taskforce on Indigenous Affairs - a part of the federal government's new governance structures for Indigenous affairs. It is intended to provide direction to policy development in this area, as well as co-ordination and resource allocation for Indigenous people. It will report to Cabinet on directions and priorities in Indigenous policy. The Ministerial Taskforce will be advised by the National Indigenous Council. The taskforce will meet directly with the Council at least twice a year.

ministry - (the...) members from both houses of parliament chosen from the party or coalition of parties with a majority in the lower house to administer the country, who are formally appointed by the governor-general as his or her ministers of state. Together with the governor-general, the ministry form the executive government.

Minjilang Community, Inc - an Aboriginal community located 230km north-east of Darwin in west Arnhem Land. The island community has an area of 120sq km and is the most northerly inhabited part of the territory. There is a population of approximately 300 people residing in the community and its outstations. The island is offshore from the Coburg Peninsula. Minjilang Council employs several staff and is assisted by employees from the Barrah CDEP in providing community services such as housing maintenance and repair, parks and gardens, garbage collection, civil works (roads, barge landing and airstrip), mechanical workshop, essential services (power, water and sewerage), Centrelink and postal agencies.

Minmi - Minmi paravertebra, an ankylosaur - a type of dinosaur equipped with bony armour - but possibly more primitive than most. It lived 100-95 million years ago (early Cretaceous). Compared with other ankylosaurs, Minmi had long legs and extra bony plates alongside its backbones. These bony plates may have been for extra muscles to attach to, and this extra muscle power may have made Minmi a fairly speedy runner, possibly the fastest-moving ankylosaur in the world. Minmi lived on the floodplains and in woodlands, eating soft, low-growing plants. The closest living relatives of Minmi are birds. Minmi fossils have been found at two sites in central Queensland. Fossils for 90 per cent of Minmi's skeleton have been found, making it the most complete dinosaur skeleton found in Australia. Minmi bones were the first ankylosaur fossils to be found in the Southern Hemisphere.

Minnamurra Falls Reserve - The first 900m of the Minnamurra Falls loop walk is suitable for wheelchair access. The upper falls walk area will give you a view of the rainforest canopy and below and then continues on to the upper falls of the Minnamurra River. The river drops to a picturesque pond and then links with the falls of a tributary creek before it drops into the slot canyon. Located within the Minnamurra Rainforest Park.

Minnamurra Rainforest Park - this important sub-tropical rainforest area extends from the plateau of the Southern Highlands to the foothills of the Jamberoo Valley. Over 90 species of ferns and more than 80 species of native trees have been identified in the 400ha of bush, including the rare Illawarra fig, red cedar, cabbage tree, the epiphytic elkhorn and various palms. Wildlife includes spectacular bird species, such as lyrebirds, parrots and honeyeaters. Located in Jamberoo, New South Wales.

Minnamurra River - a unique mangrove ecosystem on Sydney's south coast. Netting is illegal, but many a peaceful hour can be spent fishing for whiting, bream, flathead and blackfish.

minnerichi - (see: red mulga tree).