Green’s Dictionary of Slang

sugar-bag adj.

[the Depression-era use of sugar bags (made of fine sacking) for a variety of makeshift and do-it-yourself tasks]

(Aus./N.Z.) second-rate, cheap, impoverished.

Show quotations
H.C. Baker I was Listening 70: A ‘sugar bag carpenter’ suggested a bush-carpenter or tommyhawk carpenter, which were the most disparaging appellations to be flung at a tradesman. An advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald once read: Carpenters wanted. No sugar bag tradesmen need apply [AND].