Courting disaster: Kookaburra has the last laugh over Australian band

Australian rock group Men at Work lost their final court bid to prove they did not steal the distinctive flute riff of their 1980s hit Down Under from a children’s campfire song.

The High Court of Australia last night denied the band’s bid to appeal a federal court judge’s earlier ruling that the group had copied the signature flute melody from the song Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, written in the 1930s by Australian schoolteacher Marion Sinclair as a girl guides camp song.

Above, the band pose in 1983 with their Grammy awarded for best new artists the year they topped the album charts. From left: Greg Hamm, Ron Strykert, Colin Hay, Jerry Speiser and John Rees. Picture: AP