Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will move the motion relating to intercountry adoption in the terms in which it appears on the Notice Paper, but I intend to read it because I think it outlines the urgency of what needs to be done. I move:

That this House:

(1)

recognises that Australia’s rates of inter-country adoption are significantly lower than leading western nations;

(2)

notes that the Commonwealth should take the primary role in managing Australia’s external relations in inter-country adoptions;

(3)

recognises the role that non-government organisations should have in managing inter-country adoptions in Australia; and

(4)

notes that parents of children adopted from overseas have less access to benefits and entitlements than the rest of the community.

In speaking to the motion, I want to record how pleased the Standing Committee on Family and Human Services is with the way that the report has been accepted in the community at large. The committee is particularly pleased with the way that the government is beginning to respond to the report.

The Attorney-General’s Department, it has been agreed by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, is to be the lead agency to coordinate the government response. In its background notes, the Attorney-General’s Department says that the recommendations of the committee, taken as a whole, create a blueprint for systematic change in the way that adoptions of children from overseas are handled. It recognises that there can be a lead time, because some of these policies will be new policy, requiring new money.

There has been, I think, speed in the way the Attorney-General has acted. On 9 February this year he convened a meeting of all relevant departments involving relevant agencies to consider the report with a view to developing advice on the substantive recommendations. On 10 February, the Attorney-General’s Department convened an out-of-session meeting of the state and territory adoption central authorities to consider the report. Considering that we only formally tabled this report in the House on 5 December last year, for the government to respond that quickly is really commendable.

The unanimous views of all committee members, both government and opposition, showed a forceful resolve to see that something is done about the small number of adoptions—only 400—from overseas that occur here. There is a need for a non-government agency to be involved in the adoption process and be properly funded—by the Commonwealth. That peak body should then look after bodies in the states for individual funding. We believe that the culture of antiadoption that exists presently in the bureaucracy is one that has to be broken, and that, by accepting the recommendations that we put in our report, this can occur. We were quite stunned to find that the culture of bureaucracies, at both state and federal level, was an antiadoption culture.

Our recommendations—there are 27 of them in all—cover nine separate ministries. Attorney-General’s is the main one, because it is there that the starting point will rest—and that is to renegotiate the agreement between the Commonwealth and the states as to who manages the agreements with overseas countries to enable overseas adoptions to take place. We want a harmonisation of what goes on between the different states: they have different standards, different fee structures and different prejudices against would-be adopting parents. As I said, the nine departments involved are: Attorney-General’s; Education, Science and Training; Employment and Workplace Relations; Family, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs; Human Services; Foreign Affairs and Trade; Health and Ageing; Immigration and Multicultural Affairs; and the Treasury—but the lead agency is the Attorney-General’s.

We believe, fundamentally, that adoption is a legitimate way of creating or adding to a family. Overseas adoption gives children from another land an opportunity in this land, where they should be treated equally, as biological children are treated, under the law, and that means federal law as well. So it is quite within the purview of the government and the states to change certain laws straightaway. New policy, we understand, may take longer in that it needs new funding. (Time expired)

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