LP:955057 - MariaDB 5.1.55 -> 5.3.5 replication fail

Have a master+slave MariaDB 5.1.55 replicating using statement binlog format, all fine.

Added MariaDB 5.3.5 slave, get this error:

Last_IO_Error: Got fatal error 1236 from master when reading data from binary log: 'log event entry exceeded max_allowed_packet; Increase max_allowed_packet on master'

This is unrelated to max packet. max_allowed_packet is 16M on mariadb 5.1.55. It was the same on 5.3.55. Attempted to increase it to 32M to no avail.

From the error log:

120314 8:51:18 [Warning] Slave I/O: Notifying master by SET @master_binlog_checksum= @@global.binlog_checksum failed with error: Unknown system variable 'binlog_checksum', Error_code: 1193
120314 8:51:18 [ERROR] Error reading packet from server: log event entry exceeded max_allowed_packet; Increase max_allowed_packet on master ( server_errno=1236)
120314 8:51:18 [ERROR] Slave I/O: Got fatal error 1236 from master when reading data from binary log: 'log event entry exceeded max_allowed_packet; Increase max_allowed_packet on master', Error_code: 1236

attempting to turn off checksums using info from here: http://kb.askmonty.org/en/binlog-event-checksums
Has no effect.