John Ainsworth helps win a rowing race for Sydney University against Melbourne University. While celebrating at a nightclub, he demonstrates his skill with the violin with one of his original compositions. He also flirts with a young woman, Ann Brady, to the displeasure of a crook, Webster. A brawl results and John is expelled from university. John's sheep farmer father – who is disdainful of culture and wants John to marry a rich girl – is furious and disowns his son.

Daubeney Carshott, a concert pianist, leaves London to dive for pearls on Thursday Island in the South Seas at the whim of Stella Raff, his fiancée. Once there, he discovers that the life he leads as a pearl diver is better in every way than his former existence as a social-lion pianist. He meets and falls in love with Lorna Quidley, after learning this Stella had send other suitors off in quest of a giant pearl for her.

A young forestry graduate, Jim Thornton, is involved in a race between timber companies to fill a major contract. Jim has joined the crew of a genial timber baron, Burbridge, and foils attempts by a rival, Blake, to sabotage their work. J. Alan Kenyon's special effects are the highlights of the film with comic relief provided by Joe Valli as a Scottish timber-train driver amorously pursued by a shrill-voiced maid of the Burbridge's country house.

Hubert Blaydon (Cecil Kellaway),a simple Australian farmer inherits a castle and a title in England, and moves his family from the farm to the castle. He also inherits a very stuffy, prim-and-proper butler who constantly reprimands Blaydon whenever he disobeys aristocratic protocol...which he often does.

In colonial Australia, James Morrison is a young teamster who has two friends, Long and Short. He is betrothed to Jane Judd when he visits Sydney and meets fiery Irish girl Biddy O'Shea, who is just off the "wife ship" – a boatload of women from an Irish orphanage bought out to Australia. James is attracted to Biddy and promises to marry her. James returns to Bathurst to break the news to Jane, but his mother dies and makes James promise to marry her daughter. He feels obliged to honour his old commitment to Jane.

After being fired from his job at a grocer, George, gets a job as a stableboy at a local stud farm run by the Fleming family. He befriends the horse Hotspur who is a favourite to win the Melbourne Cup, and develops a strong whistle which is used to make the horse run fast.

'Stableboy buys ruined employer's horse and wins Derby.' (British Film Catalogue)

A young woman becomes the driver of a wealthy stockbroker who lost her family’s savings.

A trombonist becomes mayor of a small town, but he struggles to cope with municipal issues.

William Kell, the keeper of a lighthouse on a lonely stretch of coastline, marries cabaret dancer Eileen. His young wife, however, goes on to have an affair with Henry Cass, the handsome assistant later taken on by her husband; when she then begins to flirt with a stranger who is rescued from the wreck of a motor-launch, a chain of shocking events is set in motion...