Local artists and arts executives have praised Premier Nathan Rees for his recent commitment to boost the arts in western Sydney.

Mr Rees, who grew up in the west and has taken on the role of Minister for the Arts as well as that of Premier, said he had a vision for the arts in western Sydney.

''I am committed to shifting the emphasis away from the city and out into our regions and our suburbs,'' he said.

''I want to give kids the opportunity to develop their creative skills locally and improve access to, and support for, arts spaces.''

Local artists Vaughan O'Connor, Vincent O'Connor and Mark Brown, who are working on an interactive multimedia installation in the Brandsmart building in Parramatta, said that support for the arts should encourage artists to base themselves in western Sydney.

The three, who are working on the installation for this year's Riverbeats festival, Parramatta's signature cultural event, also said that extra funding should go into turning existing under-used buildings such as the Brandsmart building into productive spaces for artists.

Riverside Theatres director Robert Love said most state government funding for arts, cultural events and festivals had been directed at activities ''within five kilometres of the Opera House''.

Mr Love said it looked as though Mr Rees would redistribute a fair share of arts funds to where the need and the people are.

The chief executive of the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith, John Kirkman, said western Sydney was one of the nation's cultural generators, but didn't have parity of resources with some of the major ''sandstone institutions'' in the city.

''Arts and culture are a big part of our lives,'' Mr Kirkman said.

''Our audiences like quality. If it's quality, they come. If it's rubbish, they don't come.''

Parramatta's new lord mayor, Tony Issa, said Parramatta was already home to many art venues.

''The balance of arts facilities is shifting to the huge and populous region of western Sydney,'' he said.

Hon. Nathan Rees Premier

Hon. John Della Bosca, Minister for Health

Hon. Kristina Keneally, Minister for Planning

Hon. Linda Burney, Minister for Community Services

Hon. David Borger, Minister for Western Sydney

Write a few sentences in your own words and fire it off today!

The site has a long history of abuse, degradation and shameful conditions for both women and children, firstly as the Female Convict Factory and then through the Parramatta Industrial School for Females and finally the Parramatta Girls Home and Kamballa. It is an ugly story but it is a history that we should not back away from. It is a history that needs to be told. As many as one in five Australians today are descended from women who were once incarcerated in the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct, and members should consider that for a moment—that is, 20 per cent of all Australians, well over four million people, have a direct family link to women who were incarcerated on that site over its two-century history. Yet, while the Cascades Female Factory in Tasmania has been excavated extensively and is under consideration for World Heritage listing, there have been no similar archaeological digs conducted in Parramatta. We need to preserve this site and celebrate its heritage.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the work of Bonney Djuric, who has worked so hard to raise the profile of this site. In 1970 Bonney spent nine months in the Parramatta Girls Home, when she was just 15 years old. Her experiences are mirrored by the many stories told by the report of the 2004 Senate inquiry into children in institutionalised care, known as Forgotten Australians. Members who have not read that report would be well served by doing so.

The Parramatta Female Factory Precinct is an extraordinary site, and if you peek in through the gates your imagination will run wild as mine did and you will wonder why such a treasure and such an opportunity to preserve and acknowledge our history has been ignored for so long.

Read the whole speech

Email your comments to Julie Owens or call her Parramatta office on 02 9689 1455

Heritage tourism in Parramatta received a much needed funding boost of $500,000 from last week's federal budget.

The allocation to Parramatta Council, for its tourism strategy Parramatta Stories, was promised by the ALP during last year's federal election campaign and was applauded by Lord Mayor Paul Barber.

"The new investment means that Parramatta will be able to consolidate its position as a major highlight of Sydney's tourism industry,'' Cr Barber said.

Federal MP Julie Owens said with Old Government House and the Domain in Parramatta Park nominated for World Heritage listing, the project would capitalise on the city's projected future growth and help develop it into a first-class tourist gateway.

The 10-year Parramatta Stories project will have three stages, the first of which receives the funding to create an "outdoor living museum'' through stories and interpretation of its rich and diverse cultural heritage.

The "living museum'' concept involves a series of themed trails linking key heritage sites across the city including Old Government House, Elizabeth Farm, Hambledon Cottage and the Female Factory precinct.

In 1970 Bonney Djuric (pictured at the girls home by SMH) spent 9 months in Parramatta Girls Home, she was just 15 years old. This was a child welfare institution that operated from 1887 until 1986 in Western Sydney. It's an experience that she'll never forget.

Bonney is one of 500,000 Australians who were in an orphanage or some other form of out-of-home care during last century.

The 2004 Senate enquiry into children in institutionalised care, known as 'The Forgotten Australians', heard stories which told of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. They also heard from those who had been neglected and humiliated by people charged with their care. Bonney's experience was no exception.

Around 30,000 girls aged from 11 to 18 passed through Parramatta Girls Home.
They were considered 'at risk' by the authorities. Many were from the Stolen Generations, single parent families, foster homes, orphanages, state homes or regarded as 'criminal' girls.Bonney and a group of former inmates got together and organized a reunion in the grounds of the home in 2003. It was an opportunity to share their traumatic stories.

Parramatta Female Factory Precinct was formed in 2006 and the women have proposed to preserve the Parramatta site as a National Women's Heritage Centre including a 'Living Memorial' for Forgotten Australians and the Stolen Generations. The home continues its long history as a place of incarceration as the Norma Parker Periodic Detention Centre for women.

Update: A great program! Listen here.

Phillip Adams interviewed playwright Alana Valentine and former Hay Girl Christina Riley Green last night (replay 4.30 pm today)

From 1961 to 1974, the Hay Institution operated as a total security institute for incorrigible girls committed to the care of the child welfare department. It was here in an old disused gaol that girls that were deemed too difficult for Parramatta Girls Home were sent. The aim of the Hay Girls Institution was to crash the girls' spirits and for many this is exactly what happened.

Playwright Alana Valentine has written a sequel to her play Parramatta Girls called Eyes to the Floor, based on the experiences of the girls incarcerated in Hay.

Also available through download and streaming audio.

"YOU can see what it's about," Bonney Djuric says of the painting, right. "It's about the experience of every girl who was ever incarcerated, locked inside, looking out."

In 1970, at age 15, Ms Djuric spent about nine months in the notorious Parramatta Girls Home, where 30,000 women convicts, orphans, child migrants and "uncontrollable" girls were locked up between 1804 and 1974.

Most left with tales of uncompromising discipline and physical and emotional abuse. Some experienced rape and unwanted pregnancy at the hands of staff and doctors.

"No one who came in here went out unmolested," said one former inmate, Marjorie Woodrow, at an open day yesterday.

The grand heritage building has since been used as a periodic detention facility for women prisoners, one of whom painted the memento, in a bricked-up window, of her childhood stay there.

Workmen are sandpapering away remnants of the home's history - along with the names scratched into the sandstone walls in the solitary confinement "dungeon" below - in preparation for the building's reuse as a men's prison.

But Djuric and her peers want the home and its surrounds to be maintained as a support services hub and a "living memorial". Under their proposal, a research centre, an arts centre and an intensive learning centre for disadvantaged children would be based on the site, to inform the work of academics and social workers involved in child protection.

They would sit alongside organisations such as the National Elders Council established by Ms Woodrow, a stolen generations campaigner. About one in 10 Parramatta Girls inmates were indigenous.

On the day of the national apology, Ms Djuric handed the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, a letter outlining the plan, saying it would combine "art, history, technology and tourism into a site of economic opportunity, national significance and international recognition".

About 50 of the women gathered again at the decrepit home yesterday and walked their families through the dormitories and the haunting crypts beneath.

Judy Divargue, 61, who had returned from Denmark after 43 years to attend, said nobody there believed her stories about life in institutions until they began to filter through via news reports on the internet.

"It was like a concentration camp here and [at the home] in Hay," she said. "I ended up here because I was scared of my father and I ran away from home when he beat me. Now people are realising."