Her Story is Our Story – Honouring the Women of Australia - Complete the State and Federal World Heritage Journey.

A petition to the Australian Government and the New South Wales Government. 

Why support this cause. The Parramatta Female Factory and Institutions Precinct is History (PFF&IP). It is her story. It is our story. It is a part of our identity as Australians. 

The PFF&IP is one of Australia’s great landscapes of memory, conscience and survival. The buildings and spaces have World Heritage value regardless of internal or external Government opinions. This has been recognized by over 29,000 Australians already, through earlier petitions. The site is one of the most significant women’s sites in Australia and contains the women’s history, that of children and of the men who built the Female Factory. It truly is a place for all Australians.

THE PETITION
We, the undersigned, call on the Australian Government and the New South Wales Government to urgently take the following action: 
1.     Continue the World Heritage pathway with a focus on the Parramatta Female Factory.
This is to include an updated, reframed submission as part of the current World Heritage application preliminary assessment; an expert-led review of the Outstanding Universal Value case; proper international comparative analysis and expert community and academic contribution and review. As a part of the pathway establish proper planning protections for the site, buffer zone, sightlines, heritage landscape, curtilage and surrounding setting.

2.     Prepare a stronger, expert-led World Heritage strategy - continue the application both NSW State and Federal Governments started
Work transparently with community organizations working directly with the PFF&IP - Parramatta Female Factory Friends, Parragirls, survivor groups, Forgotten Australians, relevant Aboriginal organizations, heritage experts, museum specialists and the wider community.

3.     As acknowledged through National Heritage listing, commit to the implementation of site custodianship with the New South Wales Government for the long-term, ongoing management and funding for site protection, conservation, heritage buffer zones, access, interpretation, public programming and visitor/education infrastructure. 

4.     For proper management and respect, the site to be managed by a museum and heritage specialist government organization and with a board/trust to oversee the management made up of heritage, museum, community and financial expertise, such as Museums of History NSW. The museum to be the inaugural Museum of Australian Identity, for all Australians now and into the future, focusing on the Parramatta Female Factory and Institutions Precinct history as the central theme. As part of this provide immediate and long-term funding for conservation, education, interpretation, research, public programs, visitor infrastructure and accessible storytelling - work that community volunteers have carried for too long without adequate government support.

This is not a partisan issue. It is a national responsibility. It is about truth. It is about dignity. It is about memory - keeping faith with the women, children and men of Australia by honouring the women and children whose lives were foundational in contribution to shaping Australia. National Heritage is not the final chapter. World Heritage is the promise that should now be kept.

Sign today. Stand with your fellow Australians and the women, children, survivors and descendants of the Parramatta Female Factory Women (estimated 1 in 7 Australians).

HERE IS THE BACKGROUND AND THE REASONS:
As one of Australia’s great places of memory the PFF&IP was submitted by the Parramatta Female Factory Friends (PFFF) and was successful. The result was inclusion in the National Heritage List in 2017. The PFFF are as certain of its World Heritage Value and will continue to advocate for World Heritage.  Our community advocacy encouraged the Federal Government of Australia and State Government of NSW to submit the site for tentative listing. We are also advocating for best practice form of management of the PFF&IP. We ask that the site is accorded the same respect as Hyde Park Barracks and Port Arthur in both management and completing the World Heritage Application process. 

Timeline:
February 2011 - PFFF began World Heritage and National Listing Advocacy which culminated with support from other organizations in over 29,000 voices through online petitions and signature-based petitions to state and federal Parliament

July 2017 - PFF&IP National Listing. 
September 2023 - PFF&IP added to Australia’s United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Tentative List.
January 2024 - Draft listing for community consultation. PFFF assessment of this draft was it lacked the agency shown by the women, didn’t focus on the factory and its history with support from institutions and needed to rework the criteria.
July-September 2024 (not identified for community exactly when) it submitted by government after this date.
October 2025 - ICOMOS, an advisory committee, provided serious advice to government, the PFF&IP World Heritage process, through a desktop review only. It suggested it would not proceed in its current form, but the Governments have the ability to resubmit and made a couple of suggestions
December 2024 - Government determined not to proceed with next step of the process
February 2026 - Government advised community in a press release that the process was completed and advise but both State and Federal Government value the significant site and then provided the October ICOMOS 
From February to May 2026 - Community Groups and individuals sought to reconfirm the parameters of World Heritage and PFFF sought support for the last step in the World Heritage Process which was confirmed still remains an option.
June onward – an expectation by community to finish what two levels of governments have not yet completed!

The ICOMOS report must be used, not as an excuse to quietly abandon the World Heritage pathway but a call to fix the nomination - with a proper buffer zone, stronger heritage protections, fuller recognition of the site history including the world significant Parramatta Female Factory and that of the women, children, survivors and Aboriginal histories of the site, and a renewed commitment from the NSW and Australian Governments to finish the job they started. Early advice is not a final refusal - it is a chance to correct the course. For more than 200 years, this landscape has held the stories of women, children, Aboriginal people, survivors, families, patients and communities whose lives were shaped by systems of punishment, separation, institutionalisation, welfare control, labour, resilience and reform.

It began with the Parramatta Female Factory - Australia’s most significant convict women’s heritage site and the foundation of the female factory system that followed across the colonies. It later became part of a wider institutional landscape that included the Roman Catholic Orphan School, Parramatta Girls Industrial School, Kamballa, Taldree, Norma Parker Centre, mental health institutions and places connected to Aboriginal experience, child removal and survivor memory. This is a place where Australia can stand face to face with its past. It is a place of pain, but also of courage.  A place of separation, but also of survival. A place where women and children were controlled, judged and often silenced - yet where their strength still speaks. For many descendants and survivors, this is sacred ground. For all Australians, it is a national inheritance, both now and in the future.

Many Australians are descended from, or connected to, the women and children who passed through the Parramatta Female Factory system. But even for those without a direct family connection, this place belongs to the national story. It helps explain who we are, where we came from, and what we must never forget. The Parramatta Female Factory and Institutions Precinct already has National Heritage recognition. But National Heritage must not be treated as the end of the journey. It should be the foundation for the next step. World Heritage recognition would honour the full significance of this extraordinary place - not only for Parramatta, not only for New South Wales, and not only for Australia, but for the world.

The World Heritage pathway must not be quietly abandoned because it is difficult, inconvenient or politically complex. Difficult history is often the history most worth telling. Australia has rightly protected and promoted places associated with colonial administration, military history, male convict labour and public power. The women and children of Parramatta deserve no less respect. Their stories should not be left behind again.

In short, the NSW and Australian Governments must now get the job done:
·       fix the nomination;
·       protect the Precinct; and
·       secure World Heritage recognition for future generations.

Organised by: Parramatta Female Factory Friends Inc. Contact: Gay Hendriksen, President, Email: gayhendriksen@parramattafemalefactoryfriends.com.au, Mobile: 0447 189 137, Website: www.parramattafemalefactoryfriends.com.au