(This letter was the lead item on the Canberra Times letters page on Saturday 13 February, 2016)
The Editor,
Canberra Times
I have lost
count of the number of “efficiency dividend” cuts imposed on our national
memory institutions (Canberra Times 11 Feb) by both Liberal and Labor
governments, but they have long ceased to have anything to do with either
efficiency or dividends. Our stressed institutions are losing hard-won
expertise as staff numbers and budgets decline. They can cope only by closing
functions, reducing access and failing to acquire what should be preserved. As
their communities rally to help, volunteers and corporate sponsors can assist.
But this cannot, and should not, relieve government of its fundamental duty of
care for the national memory and national treasures.
As Lloyd
George once said, “national culture and identity is too important to leave to
the politicians”. The Prime Minister’s dream of an innovation nation is hardly
compatible with a mindset which regards cultural institutions as an expense
instead of an investment. Compared with the untaxed profits being offshored by
multinationals, harming our institutions contributes next to nothing in the
budget balance sheet.
Yours
Dr Ray
Edmondson
President,
Friends of the National Film and Sound Archive
This at a time when a hundred years of material, hundred of thousands of items, needs to be converted into digital in order to be accessible to the new agile innovatory future.
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