In recent years, a number of scholars have advanced the notion that there is an authorised heritage discourse, evident in countries such as Australia, England, Canada and the USA, that is propagated by officially endorsed heritage agencies, both public and private. i 'There is, really', as Laurajane Smith has observed, 'no such thing as heritage… there is rather a hegemonic discourse about heritage, which acts to constitute the way we think, talk and write about heritage'. ii This discourse legitimises and reproduces national narratives and social orders. As Smith and others acknowledge, however, this process is complex. This is particularly evident in cultural practices that are not often directly linked to the heritage industry-commemoration and memorialisation. The rise of 'retrospective commemoration' and 'participatory memorialisation' have had impacts, to various degrees and in a range of places and at different times, on the authorised heritage discourse. iii Retrospective commemoration refers to the effort of State authorities at all levels to express a more inclusive narrative of the nation as a result of, among other things, multicultural policy, by retrospectively commemorating a wider number of communities and people who have been officially identified as having contributed to Australia's 'national development'. New histories, or the emergence of previously hidden histories, also drive retrospective memorialisation. Participatory memorialisation concerns a range of vernacular memorials initiated by groups or individuals which have been later taken up or taken over by government authorities, or which have been sustained over short or long periods of time in conflict with them. These can range from the ephemeral to more formal, permanent memorials. Responses to these public forms of memorialisation and commemoration have highlighted the resilience of the authorised heritage discourse which by and large incrementally and gradually accommodates social and historiographical change in a conservative revisionist paradigm. In Australia, this is driven in large part by a nationalism based on multiculturalism. Participatory memorialisation and retrospective commemoration can also ultimately stem from a desire to 'fit in' with dominant national narratives. Memorials, however, remain amongst the most contested and enduring forms of public history. And they are both central to cementing shared cultural meanings about the past and at