The axing of Hindsight would be a terrible loss, because it’s the only slot devoted solely to history on both the public broadcasters. Hindsight makes Australian history accessible to a broad range of people, including a huge overseas audience via podcast and streaming. It explores diverse, complex, important, stories – ones that would never be commissioned for television. Its budget is very small and yet the quality is very high. The programs are invaluable for teaching history and Austrlaian studies. We should all make our voices heard on this issue, by writing directly to Mark Scott and the ABC Board – before its too late.

I would not have thought there would be many savings from cutting Hindsight. The impression I have is that it has a low budget at any rate.

The Managing Director of the ABC, Mark Scott, can be contacted on Twitter @mscott. ABC Friends NSW has a useful list of contact details for key decision-makers regarding the ABC.

However, I think we should look at this issue holistically. All the organisations that have anything to do with Australian history are having their budgets cut. We need to document this and share the overall picture with the public. It is easy to drop one program here, a lecturer there, to do a nip and tuck on the budgets of libraries, archives and museums. The public will not object to small cuts here and there and it is easy to disguise the fact that this adds up to significant cuts to Australian history. They need to know. We need to do the work to draw all the information together in order to help the public understand what is happening.