It hasn’t rained for 18 months and 5,000 sheep have already perished. Farmer Max Russell is desperate to save his remaining flock and hands them over to a drover.

This is an excerpt from the film Drought, a segment of the series Australian Diary, produced by the National Film Board and Department of Information in 1968.

The Australian Diary series, filmed between 1947 and 1970, records how Australians have lived, worked and played over the years.

Each of these short black-and-white films provides a snapshot of Australian life at the time, from rural areas and small towns to capital cities.

Informative, entertaining and often amusing, the subjects range from serious to quirky and cover everything from innovations in agriculture, industry and science to sport, art, education, fashion, flora and fauna.

There are a total of 136 diaries with 440 individual stories, providing a picture of a proud, diverse, idiosyncratic and constantly changing nation.