Yes, the Monty Python sketch was about the staff of the Philosophy Department at the University of Sydney, which was in a tent, who were all indeed named Bruce. They all wore slouch hats and sang as they downed their tinnies of Fosters: 'Rene Descartes was a silly old fart,I drink, therefore I am."

Bruce also calls to mind a Kingsley Amis? character, an Australian in London, who was known as 'Call Me Cobber'.

Eric Partridge says that the Australian use of 'dob' is ex the English dialectal word 'dob' - to put down heavily, to throw down.