David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this very extensive Breaking barriers: A national adoption framework for Australian children report. The issue of adoption is very emotional, and I would just like to make some comments to try to take the emotion out of the argument. There has never been an issue that has catalysed so much of the Australian psyche into action than the stolen generation issue. It was a result of bad policy in a different time and place that no-one would wish to happen again, but that is part of the problem when we start discussing improving the adoption system.

A very worrying phenomenon is that increasing numbers of children are going into child protection and out-of-home care. The numbers are steadily increasing. At the last audit there was a 13 per cent increase; 47,900 children were in out-of-home care and a proportion of those children, about 32,000, were there for at least two years. It is not a tenable situation that should continue in this country. Part of what this report highlights is that in an open adoption system, where the identity of the birth parents is maintained, there is no change in the birth certificate but you have a dual listing of birth parents and adoptive parents, the links to their culture or former family are kept and the responsibility and the permanency is addressed, with adoption in some cases being a viable solution to correct the recently observed intergenerational repetition of poor parenting that leads to child protection issues.

Further to those figures there was an analysis of the number of children in care in Victoria and in Western Australia back in 2011, and 40 per cent of those children had between two and five placements in out-of-home care; 14 per cent had between six and 10 placements; and 32 per cent had 11 placements. This revolving door of different placements is really damaging to young minds, emotions and psyches. Permanency is something needs to be our main focus.

I wish to make a few comments about this report and the broader issue of adoption. As has been outlined in this report, in the hierarchy of decision-making around the country, the best interests of that individual child should be paramount. Depending on which state or territory the child is in, there are different child protection and adoption laws, policies and procedures. The aspiration of this report to have a national law will simplify things in a legal sense, but I think the states, who run the child protection and adoption systems, are the appropriate legislative bodies to be deciding how they run it in their state. I think there should be a principle running through all this legislation, which is there but seems to get lost in the application of the laws, that what is best for that child has to be the focus of the decision-making. What we want to do is improve the situation so that, in the right circumstances, adoption is a viable and safe option for any one individual child.

As I mentioned at the outset, there is still a stigma associated with the word 'adoption' because of the stolen generations, the forgotten generation and all those children that were taken from the UK and brought out to Australia. It was in a different time and place. It was cloaked in secrecy. You lost your identity. Even the name on your birth certificate was changed so that your adoptive parents were your parents. The parents didn't know what happened to the child and the child didn't know what happened to their parents and family. No-one is advocating for that, but, as I said, because there is so much stigma associated with past adoption practices, anyone who advocates for a change in mindset and application of that one principle—that it has to be best for that individual child—is often met with resistance.

As I mentioned, the concept of open adoption is quite a different institution to what a lot of people assumed that people who presented to the committee inquiry would be advocating for. Birth certificates don't have to abolish the names of the birth parent. You can have co-listing of birth and adoptive parents if they are adopted. There can be prescribed levels of contact with the former family. Some of the current guardianship or parental custody orders, depending on which state you're in, allow contact with the former parents. No-one wants to change the system to make it any worse for the child, but there are some instances where the parents were violent, abusive or still have problems with drugs and alcohol. A slavish commitment to reunification and restoration is admirable, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

In my time at the ministry with responsibility at the federal level for children and families I heard many applications and horror stories where children were in this merry-go-round: they ended up with foster carers who wanted to adopt them, yet the barriers to adopt from fostering were insurmountable. There were other entreaties by people who had cared for children as foster carers and were willing and able to adopt a child but, because of this institutional, regulatory and legislative resistance to considering adoption, gave up all hope. Then, because of policies that aim for reunification or restoration, people who'd formed a bond with their foster child had the child, who'd formed a bond with them and in some instances were the only parents they knew, taken away from them, which retraumatised the child all over again. That's why I call now for people around the nation, depending on what state or territory they're in, to use the existing laws that do allow for adoption to be freed up so that, in the case where it isn't possible or safe for the child to be reunified or restored to their birth parents, adoption in an open fashion is considered and possible without waiting 10 or 12 years to achieve it.

Depending on what state you're in, there are either permanent care orders or parenting arrangements, which is de facto adoption. In Victoria, I think they had roughly between 3,000 and 4,000 children who were under permanent care orders. Depending on what state you're in, those care orders can be challenged. I also got representations from children who said that they wanted to know that, legally, they can't be given back. They're left with the uncertainty, let alone the people who were the permanent guardians rather than adoptive parents.

The issue is that adoption is not a bad thing, because, for some children in some families, it is the best option. It does give permanent relationships; it gives security. It means children aren't going through the revolving door of going from one foster family to the other to the other to the other. There are placement principles for Indigenous children which are embedded in lots of the legislation, but the overriding concern is it shouldn't exclude what is best for the child. Sure, everyone wants to be put with their kith or kin, and that is quite sensible, but in some situations in Australia it's actually not possible, particularly in very regional or remote small communities where there's a high level of dysfunction in the whole community, in which case placing them there is not the best for the child. (Time expired)

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