Next Monday marks the 249th anniversary of James Cook becoming the first European to reach the east coast of Australia – on April 29, 1770. In January, Prime Minister Morrison promised more than $12 million for projects to mark the 250th anniversary next year. More than half the funds would go to building a replica of Cook’s Endeavour and having it circumnavigate the continent (something Cook never did).

Captain James Cook, a legendary seafarer, some of whose feats have been lost in translation.

Conveniently, the site of Cook’s landfall, at Kurnell on Botany Bay, is right in the PM’s own electorate (Cook), where many of the anniversary festivities will be held.

James Cook is rightly acknowledged as the greatest navigator and explorer ever: intrepid, innovative, relentless. In the Olympics of voyaging, daylight separates him from the silver medallist.

Predictably, Cook is not universally revered in many of the places he visited. As we speak, the citizens of the Cook Islands are seeking a new name for their nation, complaining that they’ve endured a brand identity imposed on them, apparently, by a couple of Russian map-makers, keen to honour Cook.