funny, that is one my Dad always used to use. I did not even notice it.@openwheel Kettle of Fish too was a new one for me.
My Dad too. Heard it a lot since a kid. My Dad was a finn - 2nd gen, born in Michigan, from the upper peninsula, so I don't think it's an aussie thing. Mom would say it.
Now I'll google origin. LOL Probably English or British.
I always thought pasties (the food kind, although maybe that doesn't clear it up...) were a Finnish thing, since I grew up with them even in Indiana, as my folks had them often as a kid up here in the copper country of the Keweenaw.
But I read that they were originally a thing with the miners in Cornwall, the 'Cornish pasty' who brought them to the US when they came for mining jobs here. At least that what I've been told recently. So no surprise they ended up in this area with so much copper mining.
Maybe 'kettle of fish' was brought the same way. To both the US and Australia.