At the 2017 Brisbane Writers Festival, I sat on the ‘Australian Heroes’ panel with First World War historian Martin Crotty, Rebe Taylor, author of Into the Heart of Tasmania, and Crotty’s colleague, University of Queensland historian Geoff Ginn.

‘We are in an iconoclastic cultural moment when it comes to grand figures on pedestals,’ Ginn said. ‘There are pressing thoughts on the nature of heroism and stereotypes of heroism.’