Green’s Dictionary of Slang

yakka n.

(Aus.) exhausting work.

1888		Boomerang 14 Jan. 13: The Brisbane wharf labourers [...] are so accustomed to hard yacker that they can’t be happy for a single day without it .
1895		Truth (Sydney) 7 Apr. 1/6: None of them have so far evidenced any desire to strain himself by hard yakker.
1898		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Oct. 31/2: Some [swagmen] ask for ‘yacker’, some’s lookin’ for ‘graft’, and some’s ‘after a job.’.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 24 July 2/2: Seymour’s arm has been badly smashed [...] and it will be a long time before he will be able to resume ‘yakker’.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Mar. 8/3: There are pleasanter kinds of yacker than grafting in the Fremantle Ice Company’s factory.
1905		Duke Tritton’s Letter n.p.: And I can come home now after a hard day’s yakka [and] change into clean duds.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 11 June 9/4: I have had my spell of yakker, now I want my bit of fun.
1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 104: Iv yeh don’t do yer fair share iv yacker this after, I’ll punt ther slacks off yer.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 1 July 4/7: I’ve politics none but Number One, / And to keep aloof from hard ‘yac’.
1908		Sun. Times (Perth) 1 Nov. 45/3: The administration [...] left much to be desired. There was too much ‘dog’ in some directions, and too little hard yacker and business efficiency on the whole .
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Mar. 2nd sect. 9/1: They Say [...] That That the boss schemer of a coterie of crooks is haunted by visions of hard yacker.
1916		C.J. Dennis ‘The Push’ in Moods of Ginger Mick 41: Strike! I thort I knoo ’ard yakker, w’ich I’ve tackled many ways, / But uv late I’ve took a tumble I bin dozin’ orl me days.
1926		J. Doone Timely Tips For New Australians 23: YACKER. — A slang word meaning work, adapted from the aboriginal.
1935		Border Watch (Mt Gambier SA) 1 June 7/3: A real hard day’s yackker.
1936		A. Russell Gone Nomad 74: He won a prize, worth £4000 [...] He was settled for life he said. No more ‘bush yacker’ for him.
1941		N.Y. Herald Trib. 29 June 9/3: ‘Yakka’ is hard work.
1949		Mirror (Perth) 13 Aug. 6/3: Dice your yakker and get your chop of the plonk.
1952		J. Cleary Sundowners 130: Another five months’ hard yakka.
1957		‘Nino Culotta’ They’re a Weird Mob (1958) 29: Ut’s hard yacker. Diggin’ foundations.
1960		R.M. Muir Word for Word 253: I’d blown all my chips so it was a case of getting down to some hard yakker for a while.
1963–74		B. Humphries Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 16: Mum does most of the solid yakka around the place.
1965		J. O’Grady Aussie Eng. (1966) 90: A tough job is ‘hard yakker.’.
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 62: Strewth, it’s us that’s doin’ all the hard yakka round the joint.
1973		Aus. Women’s Wkly 22 Aug. 51/3: You won’t mind doing a bit of yakka for him around the place.
1986		G.A. Wilkes Exploring Aus. Eng. 10: Some Aboriginal words have been so absorbed into Australian English [...] yakker for hard work, gibber for a stone, or waddy for a stuck.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 58: Yacker: Work. Most work is ‘hard yacker.’.
1993		K. Lette Foetal Attraction (1994) 145: I know it’s hard yakka.
2000		Indep. Rev. 2 Feb. 5: A painter’s life in the 16th century was ‘mostly hard and dirty yakka.’.
2001		OnLine Dict. of Playground Sl. 🌐 yakker n. work esp hard work. As in ‘hard yakker’, ‘farm yakker.’.
2005		L. Redhead Rubdown [ebook] That fucking massaging’s hard yakka.
2016		Facebook 15 July 🌐 No dramas tonight but, and I lit up a durry, thought about my hard yakka and headed to the dunny.

In compounds

yacker-man (n.)

(Aus.) a hard worker.

1908

Sun. Times (Perth) 20 Dec. 4/8: A pair of solid yacker-men who hadn’t time to spree: / Teetotal blokes whose god was Graft.