Noel's War Records

Noel's father passed away on Saturday, 28 October 1944 - see following notice in the Cairns Post - and Noel recorded as his next-of-kin his mother Constance Mina Butler of St Mary's School in Herberton

The funeral was held at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, the same church in which just five years earlier Noel's only sister Constance Mina (Peggy) had married Andrew Ronan.
Isn't it amazing what the internet yields up with a bit of searching? :-)

Cairns Post of Saturday 11 November 1939

17 Totness Street in Torquay is the address of the Hervey Bay Croquet & Mallet Sports Club, founded in 1960. Perhaps Noel used it as a forwarding address or, just as likely, worked there for a while after he had left his job with the Department of Works in Lae and Mumeng, and before returning to Kainantu in early 1961 where he bought some land to grow coffee in which he failed and then began work in Wewak in December 1961.
P.S. I did contact the Hervey Bay Croquet & Mallet Sports Club, and their secretary, a nice lady by the name of Jenny Campbell, told me that they only moved to Totness Street in 1988. There goes another hypothesis.