Green’s Dictionary of Slang

spinifex wire n.

[SE Spinifex, ‘One or other of a number of coarse grasses [...] which grow in dense masses on the sand-hills of the Australian deserts, and are characterized by their sharp-pointed, spiny leaves’ (OED) + wire, a telegraph]

(Aus.) the outback version of the ‘bush telegraph’; thus, a rumour.

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[Aus]H. Drake-Brockman Men Without Wives I i: That’s the way we get our news up here . . . you’d be surprised how quickly it travels [...] So we say it comes by spinifex wire . . . across the spinifex grass. [Ibid.] III i: We’ve only heard spinifex wires about him and Lulu. Probably there’s nothing in it.