Eventually he moved to Australia, under a false identity carrying the name of Eugene Markie. He went to work as a miner for Mount Isa Mines in Queensland, and when he registered to work there, a comment was made to him along the lines that Eugene was a girl's name. He replied "Bill, Fred, Pat, call me what you like". "Pat it is" the man said. Mackie's pseudonym came from a misprint on his payslips when he first began work in the mines, which he attempted to have corrected. However, as the company kept producing cheques and payslips in the name of "Mackie", he ultimately adopted the name and called himself "Pat Mackie".