Speech to the Parramatta Heritage Forum
*** CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY ***
Thank you for having me here, at the Parramatta Heritage Forum, on the home of the Dharug people.
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and pay my respects to their elders past and present.
I want to emphasise that acknowledgement here, on this site, where so many members of the Stolen Generation were sent, away from their family and friends, away from their land and their culture, at the hand of a cruel and uncaring state.
In the same spirit, I want to recognise the members of the Parra Girls organisation, who were residents of this institution as recently as 1974, and who are joining us here today.
Can I also thank Andrew Charlton, the Member for Parramatta, for inviting to this forum and to your wonderful electorate.
The people of Parramatta have elected someone with a big brain, a big work ethic, and an even bigger heart.
We’re all expecting great things from him – and I’m certain he will make this community proud.
Andrew and I have just come from a tour through the grounds here, which we both found very powerful.
When you walk along these floorboards; when you place your hand against the cool sandstone; you can feel history moving around you.
You can almost hear it, whispering to you, back through the centuries.
The Parramatta Female Factory.
The Roman Catholic Orphan School.
The Parramatta Girls Home.
If you sit still, and listen, and think, you can try to imagine what it felt like to live here.
To be a young convict girl, arrested in England out of desperation or poverty, then sent across the oceans to a strange land, and finally imprisoned inside these walls.
Or to be an orphan, cut loose from the warmth of family and friends, terribly alone, and spending all of your short life in this compound, as many tragically did.
Or to be a member of the Stolen Generation, finding yourself in a cold dormitory, away from all that was familiar and supportive, and forced to live at the mercy of your wardens.
As Kevin Rudd put it, in his apology to the Forgotten Australians:
It was the ‘tragedy, the absolute tragedy, of childhoods lost. Childhoods spent in austere and authoritarian places, where names were replaced by numbers, spontaneous play by regimented routine, the joy of learning by the repetitive drudgery of menial work’.
There’s a thread that runs through these buildings and these stories.
It’s the way we’ve sought to institutionalise, control, and discipline young women.
The way we’ve judged their behaviour, their passions, their bodies.
And the way the state – largely governed by men – has sought to stamp its authority over them.
The Parramatta Female Factory was designed to enforce what people used to call ‘moral reformation’.
Girls were sent here to shield them from the temptations of colonial life; and to protect them from rowdy and violent men.
I have no doubt that violence was real – just as I’m sure many reformers sincerely believed they were doing the right thing.
But that doesn’t change the fact that this could be a brutal place, particularly for the poor, the lonely, and the powerless.
If you were a third class resident here at the Female Factory, you had your head shaved, and were then sent off to break rocks in a road gang.
And it didn’t take much to be made third class either.
One convict girl, Julia Allen, was sent here for telling her master, in very colourful language, that he was:
‘A dirty, disagreeable, detrimental little devil; a foul mouthed, evil speaking, sanctified, cantankerous coxcomb’ – and she would ‘be dead before working for him again’.
That’s another thing about visiting heritage sites like this.
You remember that history is made up of people – not passive, anonymous victims.
The women who lived here had inner lives.
They were defiant. They fought back.
They carved out whatever space they could for freedom and friendship.
And when things got really bad, they even rioted through the streets of Parramatta.
I know the New South Wales government has committed almost $54 million to conserve this place – and I think I speak for everyone when I thank them for their generous investment.
Because memory matters. Heritage matters.
I was just reading about the new memorial placed here earlier this year, in honour of the women abused in the Parramatta Girls Home.
This meant an enormous deal to those women.
As Bonney Djuric, who is with us today, said afterwards:
‘It’s physical presence is a public acknowledgement of what we went through in this place. We will all pass away, but this will remain’.
Sometimes that’s what people want most: to be acknowledged, to be heard, to be remembered.
And that’s the power of heritage.
This building was nationally heritage listed, five years ago this week.
And standing here with you today, I’m delighted to be able to reaffirm the federal government support for World Heritage listing the female factory.
In our October budget, we allocated $900,000 to help develop its nomination.
These processes inevitably take time, so we need to be patient.
But this funding will support the first steps in building a case for the site to be included in Australia’s World Heritage Tentative List – and then for potential consideration by UNESCO once a full proposal is developed.
As I’m sure some of you know, this week also marks the 50th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention.
In that time, Australia has established twenty world heritage listed sites.
These include some of the most extraordinary places on earth.
Places of breathtaking beauty, power, and life.
Places that tell our national story.
Places that reveal the deep history and culture of our First Nations people.
This is what we achieved in the first fifty years.
And I assure you – we want to achieve all that and more in the next fifty.
As Minister, I’m committed to managing and nurturing our existing properties.
And I’m determined to establish more Australian World Heritage sites in coming years.
All up, our recent budget allocated $14.7 million to support the protection of First Nations culture and World Heritage.
This included nominations for the Parramatta Female Factory, as well as:
- the Murujuga Cultural Landscape in Western Australia
- the Flinders Ranges in South Australia
- the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland
- the Victorian Trades Hall in Victoria
I’m particularly proud that we’re seeking to nominate sites with incredible Indigenous cultural values.
Labor governments have a long history of protecting our heritage.
As Minister, I am determined to extend that legacy.
As a group of people who are passionate about Australia’s heritage, I know you share my enthusiasm.
Because this mission we’re all apart of is so important.
As advocates of heritage, we’re preserving the lives and memories of people who might not be able to speak any more – but who still have important messages to share with us.
So thank you all for coming this morning.
It’s a privilege to be here.
And it’s a privilege to honour the women who have lived their lives in these buildings.
Thank you.