I examined it simply because the massacre narrative appeared absurdly weak and had been presented by the Memorial as fact. By December 2014, Punch’s massacre narrative had entered the Australian War Memorial’s authoritative public history. In May 2023 AWM director Matt Anderson relied upon Punch’s massacre story during Senate Estimates when explaining how colonial frontier violence could be connected with later Indigenous military service. Before visitors had entered the principal galleries, an unsubstantiated massacre claim had already been presented as settled fact. The Grant material shows a similar movement from uncertainty to a more categorical massacre narrative.