source : the age
The United Nations has rejected an attempt to put some of Australia’s oldest sandstone buildings on the World Heritage List, capping years of disagreement about the precinct’s future.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) informed the federal government late last year that the Parramatta Female Factory, in North Parramatta, would not be placed on the register of more than 1200 of the most precious natural and man-made places on the planet.
The sprawling precinct north of the Parramatta River opened in the 1820s as a home for female convicts and children, before later changed into an asylum, orphan school and industrial school. It is one of Australia’s most significant early colonial buildings, and is remembered for the particularly brutal experiences of women and girls who lived there.
In a detailed finding, the International Council on Monuments and Sites said the sandstone buildings, which sit on a six-hectare plot of land, had changed significantly over the years to the point that it was “difficult to see the preserved architecture”. It found Australia’s submission, which proposed a narrative of progress based on the decline of institutionalisation of vulnerable people, unconvincing.
“By constructing this modernist narrative, historical penal sites may be perceived as contributing to a myth of progress, where contemporary systems of punishment and regulation are legitimised and positioned as the natural evolution of civilisation,” the report read.
“These framings obscure the reality that the core mechanisms of control, discipline, and institutionalisation are not relics of the past but ongoing practices that have merely shifted in form and focus over time.”
In a joint statement, federal Environment Minister Murray Watt and state Heritage Minister Penny Sharpe said the finding was “very disappointing”, however “it does not diminish the recognised and intrinsic significance of the precinct to the nation, nor does it affect the strong statutory protections already in place”.
The rejection comes after a three-year fight over the state government’s master plan for at least 2500 new homes in North Parramatta, which includes the historic precinct as well as the new light rail, and which drove a wedge between the area’s Labor state and federal representatives.
While state MP Donna Davis supported the plan, federal member for Parramatta Andrew Charlton said the state government should “press pause” on the rezoning until the world heritage listing was decided. “This location is a mistake,” he said.
A UNESCO World Heritage listing would have brought the precinct in line with the Great Barrier Reef, K’gari (formerly Fraser Island), the Sydney Opera House and 11 convict sites across the country, including Tasmania’s Port Arthur. The site was put on the National Heritage List in 2017, which granted it significant protection.
Gay Hendriksen, president of the Parramatta Female Factory Friends, said the rejection was devastating for the community, which had worked to preserve stories of “the humanity, the strength of the mothers of the nation” who were institutionalised there.
“The world didn’t recognise it,” she said, “but the nation did.”
The Sydney Morning Herald has opened a bureau in the heart of Parramatta. Email parramatta@smh.com.au with news tips.
Anthony Segaert is the Parramatta bureau chief at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously an urban affairs reporter.Connect via X or email.
