Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a convict serving time on Cockatoo Island, Sydney, where criminals were held c.1870.

1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 1 Apr. 1/1: It matters little whether Johnny R—s is the son of the Cockatoo, or not, he is now a respectable young man.
1851		Melville Present State Aus. 88: Malefactors now convicted of crimes in New South Wales are transported to the cesspool of convictism — Van Diemen’s Land: so that the Cockatoos are, in fact, the old gaol-birds of New South Wales .
1851		Sydney Morn. Herald 24 Apr. 3/2: A Cockatoo Islander — Nicholas Doyle, who, under repeated cumulative sentences, has been a long sojourner at Cockatoo Island.
1861		Maitland Mercury (Aus.) 5 Mar. 2/6: The celebrated pick-pocket and Cockatoo Islander Barney Levy had [..] been cutting his leg-irons with a file.
1870		M. Cash Life and Adventures 123: He’s the bravest man that you could choose from Sydney men or Cockatoos.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 42: A large number of synonyms for convict became current, among them [...] cockatoo, Cockatoo hand, Cockatoo bird, Cockatoo islander (for a Sydney convict).

2. the actual sentence served on Cockatoo Island.

1885

J.S. Borlase Blue Cap, the Bushranger 61/2: You may judge from the down the police have on him he’ll get Cockatoo, as sure as eggs are eggs.

3. (Aus./N.Z., also cockatooer) a small farmer; thus cockatoo fence, a fence erected by such a farmer; cockatoo’s weather, fine by day, wet at night or fine in the week, wet on Sunday [the image of the SE cockatoo bird sitting on a fence and staring around + play on sense 1, as the originals of such farmers had come from Sydney to the Port Fairy area].

1852		Mrs C. Meredith My Home in Tasmania II 187: ‘Cockatooers’ [...] are not [...] a species of bird, but human beings; who rent portions of this forest from the proprietors and vainly endeavour to exist on what they can earn.
1863		M.K. Beveridge Gatherings among the Gum-trees 154: Oi ’m going to be married / To what is termed a Cockatoo – / Which manes a farmer.
1870		M.A. Barker Station Life in N.Z. 110: These small farmers are called Cockatoos in Australia by the squatters and sheep-farmers who dislike them for buying up the best bits of land.
1880		‘Erro’ Squattermania 44: ‘What do you call a cockatoo?’ ‘A man that lives on a little bit of ground,’ replied Barney.
1887		‘Aus. Colloquialisms’ in All Year Round 30 July 67/1: The small farmers and selectors [...] are looked down upon by the owners of the large runs and are somewhat contemptuously termed ‘cockatoo farmers’.
1893–5		Lawson ‘Two Sundowners’ in Roderick (1972) 96: Three to five men in the little bough-covered shed of the small ‘cockatoo’.
1893		N.Z. Graphic Dec. n.p.: Your fifty-acre cockatoo looks with huge contempt on the swagger.
1902		‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘A Walgett Episode’ in Rio Grande’s Last Race (1904) 42: There came a stranger – a ‘Cockatoo’ / The word means farmer, as all men know.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 6 Oct. 39/1: They both wanted Mary Byrnes, the good-looking daughter of a cockatoo farmer in their vicinity, but she favored Dooley, and Nolan [...] gave way to his mate.
1933		(ref. to 1890–1910) L.G.D. Acland Early Canterbury Runs (1951) 369: cockatoo’s weather – Fine by day and rain at night; or, sometimes, fine all the week and wet on Sunday. [Ibid.] 370: Cockatoo – Now usually abbreviated to cocky. An agricultural farmer, a small farmer, as opposed to a squatter or sheep farmer.

4. attrib. use of sense 4.

1858		‘A. Pendragon’ Queen of the South 12: You new chum vagabond crawler; you parchment-staining, quibbling, pettifogging cockatoo-settler.
1863		Argus (Melbourne) 4 May 6/5: [A]ssistance and shelter that have been afforded them by a class of unauthorized occupants of Crown lands, knowa in the provincial slang as ‘Cockatoo squatters’.
1890		A.J. Vogan Black Police 219: The poor wretches one sees forced to work by brutal squatters, carriers, ‘cockatoo’ settlers, and others. [Ibid.] 226: Arrived at the little station, I was introduced to Mrs. Cockatoo-squatter.

5. a lookout for those engaged in some form of illegality [f. sense 1 or f. the noted wariness of the SE cockatoo bird].

1920		Sun (Sydney) 22 Mar. 5/5: The [two-up] school was in full swing, and the watchman for the gamblers, better known as the ‘cockatoo,’ was on a look-out viewing the bushy country around.
1930		Age (Melbourne) 18 Dec. 13/7: [headline] A ‘COCKATOO’ GAOLED. Armed Thieves' Lookout Sent in for Two Years.
1940		Truth (Sydney) 24 Mar. 23/1: ‘Cockatoo'’ Fired Gun. Evidence that a ‘cockatoo' ’ the look-out man or scout who warns his comrades of police approach — of a big two-up school on the North Shore had fired a shotgun in warning enabling the escape of 60 to 70 men was given at the Hornsby Police Court.
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 2: ‘Darky’ Snedon, the ‘cockatoo’, little rat-faced unshaven man with stooped shoulders, whose job it was to watch for the police.
1953		K. Tennant Joyful Condemned 285: I come to you privately, where there isn’t any cockatoo to run with the news.
1965		L. Haylen Big Red 101: Suddenly, the cockatoo screamed: ‘’Ere’s ’Obbs.’ ’Obbs was terrible down on gamblin’.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxiii 4/4: cockatoo: A watcher-out for the law at a game or chance or S.P. shop. Nit-keeper.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 9: There the game was properly run at the far end of a terrace which overlooked an escape route of alleys, and there were always ‘cockatoos’ out keeping nit.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 15: Cockatoo: [...] In popular parlance, a sentinal at an illegal gambling game who keeps an eye open for the coppers.
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 213: Derelict rooms above greasy hamburger joints, with steep, dimly lit stairs and a cockatoo, usually a teenager, stationed on the corner, to look out for cops.
1999		People (Sydney) 5 July 22/2: My first jobs were a lolly boy at a theatre at Mascot and a ‘cockatoo’ for the local SP bookie - both at the age of 11.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 45/1: cockatoo n. a person who keeps watch for another, e.g. during a fight, while gambling, drawing tattoos, or taking drugs.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] [H]e asked me [...] to keep cockatoo, seeing as I was on the third tier [...] and could clearly see both towers from my cell.
2010		W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 61: The word pegger has an equivalent in Australian criminal slang as cockatoo, meaning a look out.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] The spivvy young cockatoo at the side door of the pub was an unfamiliar addition to the Soup’s gang.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 2: They drop the cockatoo [...] From here, he can look back at The Way as it undulates along the ridge line.