TROVE CURTAILED

Dear Editor,

As President of the Australian Historical Association, on 2 March I sent the following letter to the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull MP, Prime Minister of Australia, (and copied it to the Hon. Bill Shorten MP, Leader of the Opposition; Senator the Hon. Mitch Fifield, Minister for the Arts; and the Hon. Mark Dreyfus QC, MP, Shadow Minister for the Arts):

Dear Mr Turnbull,

As the peak body representing historians in Australia, the Australian Historical Association is extremely concerned about further cuts to the budgets of our national collecting institutions. Our national institutions, including the National Library, the National Archives, the National Museum, the Museum of Australian Democracy, and the National Film and Sound Archive are the most prominent storehouses of our collective identity and culture. When they cannot fulfil their missions to collect, preserve, interpret, and enable research access, we are all diminished.