poke mullock at

poke mullock at (someone or something)

old-fashioned To taunt or mock someone or something; to make fun of someone or something. Primarily heard in Australia. The humorist has long been poking mullock at figures high in the social and political spheres, drawing the ire from many of them.

poke mullock at

ridicule someone. Australian & New Zealand informal

In Middle English, mullock meant ‘refuse or rubbish’, a sense which only survives in dialect use. In Australian English it came to be used of rock that either did not contain gold or from which the gold had been extracted, and it then developed the extended sense of ‘worthless information or nonsense’. This phrase dates from the early 20th century; compare with poke borak at (at borak).