Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) a liar, a mimic.

[1861		Argus (Melbourne) 11 Feb. 4/7: One celebrated savant, more learned in phonography than orthography, pronounced it a lyre-bird, or liar, as the savant himself used to spell the word].
1899		Truth (Sydney) 24 Dec. 7/1: The President : Who on earth says the Premier wrote such an absurd song? Mr Snagglewit : A little bird whispers it, but I think it’s a lyre-bird!
1911		Truth (Sydney) 30 July 6/1: A little bird — and not a lyre-bird either — had whispered to him that his bowing and scraping in a black velvet swallow-tail, his platitudes at the Conference, his feasting and guzzling at the expense of the taxpayers [...] and conduct in general had rather disgusted the mass of Labor supporters.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 235/2: lyrebird – a liar, if applied to persons.