I table this petition on behalf of the federal member for Parramatta , Julie Owens. The Parramatta Female Factory Friends have collected 11,155 signatures that ask the House to do all in its power to enable the female factory site to be nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site so it can become a living museum and national resource centre managed jointly by a federal and state government trust with the expertise to conserve and interpret the site in accordance with the guidelines of the Burra Charter.

Of the 13 female convict factories built in Australia, the Parramatta Female Factory is the earliest surviving and most intact, predating all but three of the convict sites currently on the World Heritage convict list. The site includes the 1818 convict female factory commissioned by Governor Macquarie, the 1820s Governor Brisbane third-class additions and the Governor Gipps Courtyard. It's been a barrack, a factory, a marriage bureau, a prison, a work assignment bureau, a hospital and a women's health centre, and the site of the earliest women workers' action in 1827.

An estimated one in seven Australians are related to factory women, including Maggie Beer; Dawn Fraser; Kurt Fearnley; Meg Keneally, daughter of Tom Keneally; John Pilger; and Lisa Wilkinson. It's time for the Australian government to take the final step and nominate this extraordinary place for World Heritage listing, cementing its status as a site of outstanding universal value.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The document will be forwarded to the petitions committee f