The once-and-now-perhaps-future Eureka Centre had as its Grail the historic and symbolic possession of the Southern Cross flag, icon of the uprising. Historic in the carefully-negotiated transfer of the original banner from the Art Gallery of Ballarat; symbolic in the extraordinary but doomed oversized rendition flying (and tearing) outside the $4 million building, redolent of a ship’s sail and of migrating miners.

This was a statement: come here to discover the truth of Eureka.

And therein is its fatal flaw. There is no truth about Eureka. It’s not the ‘founding story’ of Australian democracy in and of itself. Eureka today is a collection of opinions and half-recollections, claimed by various groups for their agendas.

The facts, like the site of the Stockade itself, are elusive. Murder, hotel burns, monster meeting, oath, flag, stockade, troops, slaughter, trial, acquittal, vindication. These things took place undoubtedly, but to ascribe them a prescriptive cultural definition 164 years distant is fraught.

Yes, some taking part, many perhaps, were democrats, infused with the era of revolution. Some were opportunists, infused with the sense of their own gain. And others were simply drunk, infused with gin and raw rum.

MADE was a brave attempt to address that inconsistency. To talk about the role of women, of the Indigenous, of the state of our Commonwealth today. But the provincial vision of ‘us and them’, bad redcoats and good stockaders, the simple narrative that protects the status quo of who is who, has won out – for now.