Boy that's a can of worms!!!! There always seems to be a great deal of discussion about the word POM and it's derivation. Here's three that I have heard:

P.O.M.: Prisoner of Mother England - New convicts to Australia.

Short for Pomegranate (rhymes with immigrant) - fairly unlikely I think but also the first version I ever heard about 20 years ago.

Short for pomegranate - something to do with the colour of the pomegranate's flesh (white) being like that of a new chum, or the skin being like that of said new chum after a while in Oz.

I think that the first is generally accepted, but the dictionary I just looked at says uncertain origin. Here in South Australia we just got it as an import from the Eastern States at first, we had no convicts, so what would we really know.

Also in regards cocky farmer's, in South Oz we have a cocky gate (don't know about the rest of Oz) which is similar to something in NZ called a taranaki gate. Very cheap way of leaving a gap in the fence by just using a fence section, spacers and all, as a gate and straining an end spacer to a fixed fence post. Cocky farmers used them because they were cheap and easy. They don't stand up to charging cattle to well though.

Benjamin