6 August 2026

By William O’Chee

As the only country to occupy an entire continent, Australia is a nation of tribes. However, in each state those tribes are defined and discerned in different ways.

In Victoria, tribal affiliation is determined by what Australian Rules football team you support. It is the first question asked on meeting a new acquaintance. In Sydney, at least, it is in what suburb you live (and therefore how expensive your home mortgage is). In Queensland, the determining question is what school you attended.

For better or worse, the state is dominated by a handful of influential schools. For boys these are the nine self-selected members of the Greater Public Schools Association, or GPS. There are ten similar girls’ schools that make up the corresponding Queensland Girls Secondary Schools Sports Association, which is sometimes called the girls’ GPS. That is not to say there aren’t hundreds of other perfectly good secondary schools, but the GPS schools still dominate public, professional and sporting life, especially rowing. And they are incredibly tribal.

You can imagine my surprise when I received an invitation to a “Sportsmen’s Lunch” for Brisbane Grammar School, as I had attended two of its GPS rivals. As one of the few outsiders present, I almost expected a “Welcome to Country Ceremony” all for me.

The room was filled with 350 of Queensland’s leading men – lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers and used car salesmen – all filled with joie de vin. The school’s representatives in politics and the judiciary wisely eschewed the company of their school friends, but undaunted, I ventured forth to report for HTBS on the intersection in Queensland of public life and sport.

The focal point of the lunch was the christening of two new Sykes coxless pairs, bought for the school by the Old Boys Association in memory of two recent students who died in separate skiing accidents in the last twelve months. It was a moving occasion, and well done.

The GPS rowing scene was the birthplace of schoolboy rowing in Queensland. It’s annual multi-lane regatta, anomalously named the Head of the River, has its origins in 1890. Brisbane Grammar was present at the first race, and has been rowing ever since.

This embrace of rowing was in no small part due to its second Headmaster, Reginald Roe, who was originally from England. Roe sat in the three seat of the Balliol College crew that went Head of River in Summer Eights in Oxford in 1873. Appointed Headmaster in 1876, Roe would not only play a leading role in education in the State, but also in rowing, where he was Chairman of the Queensland Rowing Association.

As it was a “Sportsmen’s Lunch” the room was filled with sporting luminaries, and compered by old boy Greg Martin, a former Wallaby full back and now morning radio host. Ebullient and occasionally vituperative, he worked hard to prove he could drink copiously and be humorous at the same time. Which he did better is a matter of debate. The rugby contingent was also represented by fellow former Wallabies, Billy Ross, Dick Marks, David Nucifora and captain Stephen Moore.

The school’s recent rowing history has been good. In the last 25 years they have produced international representatives Hardy Cubasch, Shaun Coulton, Paddy Holt, Darryn Purcell, Miller Rowe, Sam Conrad and Logan Ullrich. It has also spawned an enthusiastic old boys rowing club, Grammarians. They are an active and enthusiastic bunch, but it is possible all is not in order. Prominent Grammarians club committee man, Scott Austin, was spotted wearing his club bow tie upside down; a clear sign of aquatic distress.

Is this privileged? Undoubtedly. Is it self-aware? Quite probably. The day’s fundraising auction netted in the vicinity of A$55,000 to fund bursaries for boys who might not otherwise attend the school. A great achievement.

For all of this, my hosts were convivial and generous, notwithstanding our different loyalties.

The lunch was followed by post-prandial drinks which stretched late into the evening. To protect the guilty from journalistic scrutiny, I did not attend. By all accounts it was a lively affair – proof that it is possible to pass from barbarism to decadence and back again without ever alighting on civilisation.