I gather this happened in a setting where the Australians were in traditional gear, with the spears and firesticks and all.

It was rather as if the old lad had gone along to a Sealed Knot re-enactment and had asked whether the Roundheads and Cavaliers still fired muskets at each other for real. I suppose if he had there might be some people who would say that was disrespectful to the people who died in the English Civil War...