Given the obsession many in government have with winning the culture wars it is hard to understand why our national museums, galleries and libraries have suffered significant funding cuts since the 2014 election.
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While some cuts were initiated under the Gillard-Rudd government, they have been pushed into overdrive under Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.
An estimated $36.8 million has been stripped from the combined budgets of institutions including the National Library of Australia, the National Museum and the National Gallery of Australia since 2015-2016.
The effect on institutions burdened with high fixed costs due to the need to preserve and add to their collections and to conduct programs of national outreach has been dramatic.
The NGA has shed almost 10 per cent of its staff, many of whom were people with specialist skills and expertise, since December 2015.
The National Library of Australia is, according to the Community and Public Sector Union, now heavily dependent on temporary contract staff.
Our major cultural institutions cannot be managed in the same way as a takeaway food restaurant, fish and chip shop or chain hardware store.
They have a contribution to make to the intellectual and cultural life of the nation that extends decades, if not centuries, beyond the four year term of any given parliament. Canberra as the nation's capital is the obvious repository for much of that cultural history.
As the custodians of our national wisdom, knowledge and heritage, their greatest assets include the team members who have spent much of their working lives developing an encyclopedic knowledge of what they protect.
An excellent example is the National Library which is akin to the proverbial iceberg. What the public sees is just a fraction of the almost seven million records, items of ephemera, artefacts and publications that have been collected and stored since Federation.
While Arts Minister Mitch Fifield's belated acceptance the cuts may have gone too far is welcome, the better times he has promised may fall into the "too little and too late" category.
Because it costs more to reinstate something that has been victim of a razor gang than it would have been to fund it appropriately from the get go. We are conceivably now on the cusp of tax payers having to chip in more to cover the unintended consequences of a "savings program".
While the impact of these cuts may be a matter of indifference to the many MPs who have little love for Canberra, they would be well advised to look at the bigger picture.
Our national institutions serve the nation, not just Canberra. When their budgets suffer so does their ability to reach out to the nation. Future generations looking to these institutions to learn from our past may wonder why more was not done to preserve and celebrate our nation's remarkable story.
