Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a wonderful group of buildings in Parramatta known as the Female Factory, not because it made women; in fact, it broke more women than it made. An early colonial governor, Governor Hunter, called the convict women who worked there 'a disgrace to their sex', 'far worse than the men' and 'generally found at the bottom of every infamous transaction committed in the colony'. Perhaps it was not every one, but there several riots—the first female workers riot, in 1827, and four more after that.

The Female Factory was not the first female convict factory in Australia. That one was in 'Gaol Green' in Parramatta's Prince Alfred Park in 1804. It was a room above the jail which held nine looms and 40 common wheels. The Female Factory as we know it today was the second, but it was the first purpose-built factory in the colony and it produced our first export—which was linen, by the way. The factory was designed by Francis Greenway, and Governor Macquarie laid the first stone not far from what was a sacred women's site, a birthing stone on the banks of the river. In 1821 the convict women moved in, and the Indigenous women of the Burramattagal clan had to move out.

A more recent female factory, the Cascades in Tasmania, is far less intact but is listed on the World Heritage register. Many people in my community, and I am one of them, believe that the Parramatta Female Factory should also be World Heritage listed. But the Female Factory is not on the World Heritage List; in fact, it is not even on the National Heritage register, largely because the state government has resisted because, to quote state member Geoff Lee, heritage listing impedes development. Well, it may impede property development, particularly high-rise and medium density developments on top of our heritage, but it does not impede community development, and it provides a sense of place and provides opportunities for economic development.

In spite of the lack of support at state level, the local community has been submitting applications for heritage listing over and over, and I am pleased to inform the House that the Parramatta Female Factory is currently before the Australian Heritage Council. The decision on its listing on the National Heritage List is expected in June 2017. Once listed on the National Heritage List, it can be nominated for UNESCO World Heritage listing, which it undoubtedly deserves. But—and it is a big but—it is a race against time. The state government are intent on cashing in on the sale of public land on which the precinct stands, to sell off our public land and our assets to property developers as super-lots for high-rise and medium density development. While they have backed off medium density within the footprint of the most significant sites, they are still planning on allowing it right up to the convict-built walls. For some reason we are told that if you want to maintain your heritage assets in Parramatta you have to sell them first.

I congratulate the many groups, including Parramatta Female Factory Friends and North Parramatta Residents Action Group, for the work they have done in protecting the site so far. Let's all get behind them.