Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I begin by commending the government for presenting its response to the Standing Committee on Family and Human Services report on overseas adoption in Australia. It has taken almost a year but, by comparison with the wait for response to other reports of the family and human services committee, this response has been about as close as we have seen to being on time. While we now have the Commonwealth government’s response, state governments, which were the subject of a number of recommendations, will not be making any direct response, although as I will mention later we have seen some changes proposed which affect areas dealt with in the committee’s report.

Before moving on to the substance of the government’s response, I should mention some general observations about government responses to committee reports. The first is one that all committees should be aware of when bringing down reports, and that is when recommendations call for action which is outside the authority of the Commonwealth government. While we may recommend that the Commonwealth use its influence at various intergovernmental forums, ultimately it is the states themselves which have the authority to act according to the recommendation or to reject our findings and not implement the recommendation. It is the case that, where the committee recommends action on the part of the states, generally that recommendation relies on the Commonwealth being successful in convincing the states collectively to adopt the proposal. This difficulty is made plain in the response to recommendation No. 3, where the government says:

It is noted that, while doing its best to influence the State and Territory Governments to move to greater harmonisation, the Commonwealth cannot dictate outcomes as the operational aspects of overseas adoption will remain primarily a State and Territory Government responsibility.

That is something that all Commonwealth parliamentary committees should be aware of. When making recommendations which impact on or require the cooperation of the state and territory governments, committees should first satisfy themselves that they have fully investigated the issue from the state and territory perspective and have an appreciation of the resource constraints which state and territory governments must operate under in that program area.

This brings me to the second general remark, where the resource constraints of the Commonwealth are raised. In its response to recommendation 23, which dealt with the establishment of a file ID tracking system, the government makes the statement:

The recommendation is accepted but it is acknowledged that there are resource implications involved in developing and updating such a file tracking system.

I mention these general matters because it is possible for individual committee members to push a very narrow agenda and lose sight of the broader issues.

I move on to the detail of the government’s response. For recommendation 1, the Commonwealth-state agreement dealing with the implementation of the Hague convention, we see the willing but not able response. As the response says:

... implementation may require a long lead time and will have resource implications which will need to be closely examined.

As that response suggests, what may have appeared straightforward to the committee during its inquiry can be far more complex when it comes to implementation—or it could be just another cop-out by the department or agency. What it comes down to is whether the parliament is satisfied that the department has adopted that recommendation and will try to implement it over a period of time. I dealt with recommendation 3 earlier, but it seems that, while the recommendation set out the committee’s wishes, it is left to the government to determine the ways and means of putting the recommendation into practice.

Recommendation No. 4 made a direct request of the government of New South Wales and, as I have already said, it requires action by an agency outside the authority of the Commonwealth government. It is heartening to see that the New South Wales government is currently reviewing this matter, but I doubt that this is solely in response to the committee’s report.

The response to recommendation No. 5, which calls for the establishment of consultative committees, suggests that such mechanisms are already in place, although not in line with the prescriptions of the committee’s report. It leaves me wondering whether our recommendation is too prescriptive in not allowing enough latitude for the states and territories to develop consultative mechanisms that best suit their own situations.

I must say that I am most disappointed with the refusal of the government to accept the committee’s recommendations Nos 6, 7 and 9. We have to remember that this was a bipartisan report; every recommendation was supported by members of both sides of the chamber. The committee’s report drew attention to the very small number of parents adopting children over five years of age. As I have said on earlier occasions regarding the tabling of the report, from the government’s point of view, the amount of money involved is quite small. But, as the committee heard, overseas adoption is a very expensive exercise for individuals and families. Some committee members went to great lengths to stress the high fees charged by state and territory governments. However, we cannot lose sight of the fact that, for a small number of adoptive families, the loss of leave entitlements, as is the case with recommendations Nos 6 and 7, and the loss of maternity payment, which is dealt with by recommendation No. 9, can be seen only as cruel and heartless measures that discriminate—and they definitely discriminate—against a very small number of adoptive parents.

I also note that the committee stressed that the adoption of older children presented special problems. But, for the sake of very minor—and they were very minor—changes and expenditure, these adoptive families face a far greater monetary loss than all the state-imposed fees put together. The government allows for extending the eligibility for the immunisation allowance for children of up to the age of 16 years who have been adopted from overseas. But, even given the smallness of the cost, it refuses to allow the general maternity payment for children over two years of age.

I welcome today the announcement by Tanya Plibersek, our shadow minister for work and family. She has stated that Labor will—and we will—abolish the age restriction on the maternity payment for adoptive parents. So I take this opportunity to again remind the government that this is a bipartisan report—that both sides of the parliament agreed to it. I ask members of the government to take it up with the minister and follow Labor’s lead to abolish the age restriction on the maternity payment for adoptive parents.

Going back to recommendation No. 8, I note the comments regarding workplace agreements being used as a means of obtaining conditions for adoptive parents. While it may be possible for an employee to gain improved conditions, I have to wonder what other conditions, which would otherwise be standard, may be traded away for special arrangements for parents adopting from overseas. Regarding recommendations Nos 11, 13, 14 and 15, the government has agreed to implement procedures to make these small but important changes, while recommendation No. 12 is included in amendments to the Australian Citizenship Bill. The government agrees with recommendation No. 16, which deals with performance information on intercountry adoptions.

I must say that I share the government’s concern about the cost of collecting this information. We all agree that it would be nice to have this information but, unless it can be collected at minimal cost, I have to wonder if the money would be better spent on staffing the agencies responsible for adoption rather than on bean counters who produce reports on performance. The response to recommendation 17 appears to disagree with the committee’s conclusion that states and territories should amend their adoption legislation to include the provisions of the Hague convention. While I can appreciate the need to speed up the adoption process in many ways, I can see why there is reluctance to legislate changes which may impact on other aspects of the adoption process.

A number of the remaining recommendations were accepted by the government and involved varying degrees of administrative and intergovernment collaboration, all of which would improve the process of overseas adoption. The response to the last recommendation leaves me a little bit confused. It calls on the Attorney-General’s Department to establish a program to fund a national peak overseas adoption support group. The government’s response is that the recommendation is accepted in part, and it suggests that the support group represents the interest of the adoptive community. Because funding is required, it seems the Attorney-General’s Department is willing to fund the representative interest of the adoptive community but not other support programs. I can understand that the funding of small support groups is not something that is a responsibility of the Attorney-General’s Department but, in view of other recommendations which seek to centralise parts of the adoption process, it is hard to see how those support functions could be funded. Perhaps it would be better placed under the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.

Finally, I want to refer to those recommendations which were not included in the formal report but were included as an appendix. The committee was concerned for the fate of the many Australian children in foster care and the low rate of adoption for children in care. The committee’s report was critical of the role of state governments in their handling of this issue. It is timely then to note for the House that, in legislation introduced into the New South Wales parliament last week, changes will be made which reflect a number of the concerns raised by the committee. The New South Wales Minister for Community Services and state member for Cabramatta, Reba Meagher, has indicated that the amendments will allow foster carers wanting to adopt children to do so without the consent of the birth parents. The amendments would appear to go a long way toward implementing the committee’s recommendations.

Having taken part in the intensive inquiry which led to the report on overseas adoption, it is heartening to see this relatively prompt response from the government. It is pleasing to see a number of recommendations implemented, but it is disappointing to me as a member and as deputy chair of that committee—and, I am sure, to a number of adoptive parents I have spoken to since the tabling of the report—to see that the government cannot make the small change to remove the five-year age limit for benefits and conditions for adoptive parents. In closing, I would also like to state again that I congratulate the shadow minister for work and family for announcing today that Labor will abolish the age restriction on the maternity payment for adoptive parents, and I hope that the government will take Labor’s lead on this, because it was a bipartisan report.

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