Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the government response to the report on the inquiry of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Human Services into overseas adoption. The Standing Committee on Family and Human Services began its inquiry into overseas adoption in 2004. It received a large number of submissions—274—and took evidence from 100 witnesses in 12 hearings. It reported in November 2005. Amongst its key findings were a number of recommendations. There were 27 recommendations, with bipartisan agreement, including that the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations should remove the five-year age limit for adoption leave, that the minister should standardise maternity leave so that adoptive parents in the Commonwealth public sector receive the same conditions as birth parents, that the Minister for Family and Community Services should remove the age limit for adopted children’s eligibility for maternity payment and that the Minister for Family and Community Services should amend eligibility criteria for maternity immunisation allowance so that adoptive children can receive it for two years after the child’s entry to Australia.

I know from the public response at the time from adoptive parent groups that they were thrilled with the report. They thought that the committee did an excellent job and that the bipartisan recommendations made by the committee took up a number of issues that they were concerned with. Many adoptive parents and the groups that lobby on their behalf—where the parents are able to support each other through what is a difficult, long and expensive process—had taken a lot of time that many of them do not have. They are busy with their young families. They had taken their precious time to make detailed submissions for the report and they were very pleased with the response the committee gave them.

It was a shame in that context to see the comments of the member for Lindsay, who said in the Age on 14 February in 2006 words to the effect that intercountry adoption encouraged a trade in babies. We know that parents who adopt from overseas consider very carefully the ethical aspect of adopting from overseas. They think very long and hard about not only their own desire for a child but also whether they are doing something that is in the best interests of a child. Because of the international conventions to which Australia is signatory, I think it is arguable that we can be confident that, where children are from countries that are signatories to international conventions, those countries have tried to place those children with families in their own country. In fact, in a number of countries I think the process of trying to place children domestically is so slow that we add to the difficulties of those families and those children, because in many cases they have lived in underresourced institutions for many years before they are able to come to be part of an Australian family.

So those comments about Australian parents contributing to a trade in babies, I think, were incredibly hurtful and offensive to many Australian families, including a mother that I was contacted by, Gail Chamberlain. She contacted me from International Adoptive Families of Queensland, very upset about these comments. She also, in her contact with me, wanted me to push wherever I could for the government to respond positively to the bipartisan recommendations made by this committee in its very good report.

She also wanted an apology from the member for Lindsay, which I am sure she did not get—her emails kept bouncing back unopened. She was joined by a number of other adoptive parents, including Steve Nielsen from the Australian Korean Friendship Group, which obviously, as the title would tell you, provides support for Queensland and Victorian families who are seeking to adopt or have adopted from South Korea. He also wanted an apology from the member for Lindsay, and he said in his contact with me: ‘comments such as those from Ms Kelly do nothing to help us’. Ms Kelly’s ignorance will not address the inconsistencies within the process of intercountry adoption. He too was very concerned that the recommendations of the standing committee’s inquiry on intercountry adoption would never see the light of day and was very supportive of the committee’s bipartisan recommendations.

I spoke at some length to a number of parents who were concerned, as I say, by the member for Lindsay’s comments. Really, the overwhelming message was that people who go through the expense, the heartache and the long and difficult process of adoption do it because they believe they can give a good and loving home to the children that they are adopting because they have got a lot of love to give. They do consider those issues. Would this child be better off in his or her birth country? Would they be better off? After a lot of soul searching, I think these parents come to the conclusion that a loving family home has to be better than an institution.

I was pleased to see that a number of the recommendations were adopted by the government. I have been disappointed that some of the most significant ones so far have been rejected by the government. I hope that we will still see some movement on these. One of the most significant was the age restriction on the maternity payment. Currently the maternity payment is not paid to parents who adopt a child who is aged two or over. This means that many parents are not eligible for the $4,000 maternity payment because their child is older than two when adopted. You often hear of stories of children who miss out by just a few months: they come to a family aged two years and one month, and they are not eligible for the $4,000 maternity payment. This is not the fault of the families; it is not the fault of the children. In most cases, the delays are, as I say, because of the very careful checking processes both here in Australia to ensure that families are suitable families and overseas to ensure that there are no birth family members who can look after these children. This is a completely arbitrary cut-off date and it discriminates against parents who take on an older child.

Older children are much harder to place than babies. They often come to Australia with significant difficulties, psychological problems and intellectual and developmental delays because of the fact that they have been raised in institutions frequently with not enough adult contact. The fact that parents are prepared to take on older children with the whole range of difficulties—and incidentally a whole range of additional expenses because they are older children—should never be a cause for those families to be discriminated against.

One couple whom I spoke to, Lorren and Robert, have two children of their own, aged 13 and nearly 11. After having thought for many years about adopting a child, they started the long and expensive process last year. They recently became parents to a new daughter aged four years and five months. They say:

Eligibility for the maternity payment would make a huge difference to us, and ease considerably what we would be able to afford to do once returning home. Most adopted children arrive with nothing to their name. Given the age of our other children, we know we will need to purchase clothes, toys, bedding etc that we no longer have. To assist with language and integration, we will also need to invest in toddler appropriate reading books and activities. As the primary income earner, our income will also reduce in the new year, as I intend to take some time off work and then return to reduced hours. An injection of $4,000 upon returning home would enable us to concentrate on nurturing our new child, and ease the financial strain that we have acutely felt at many stages through the adoption process.

Another woman who contacted me, Sandi Peterson, is an adoptive mother of an 11-year-old, an eight-year-old and a three-year-old. She says:

I assure that you the cost of a bed, clothing, toys and activities for an older child are generally more expensive than those for an under 2 year old. All children are equally precious regardless of whether they come to our families through birth, through adoption at an age under 2 years of age or through adoption as an older child.

On 30 October this year, Labor announced that we would abolish the age restriction on the maternity payment for adoptive parents. We believe that the adoption of a child, whether born in Australia or overseas, requires courage and determination. It often also requires a great deal of money, as this report details. Adoptive parents can spend up to $30,000 in adopting a child from China, for instance.

The maternity payment, currently $4,000, should be available to adoptive parents as they have even higher costs than birth parents when welcoming a new child into their family. Adoption agencies and many parents who gave evidence to this parliamentary committee on the adoption of children called for this reform. They have called for it repeatedly, as I know the member for Mackellar opposite has in the past. We believe that families are right in calling for this change and that indeed it should be made.

We have been distressed by some of the controversial comments made by the member for Lindsay and others about overseas adoption. We believe that adoptive parents do take this very difficult decision with a great deal of forethought and with the very best intentions for their family and for the adoptive child that they are to welcome into their family. We hope that the government will respond to this report positively and pick up the remaining recommendations that they have not agreed to to date and implement those bipartisan recommendations as well.

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

In rising to speak to this report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Services which I chaired, I do so with a great deal of pride in the report and the work that the members of the committee put into it. It was a bipartisan report and it was one that touched the hearts of all of our members in a very significant way.

During the course of taking the evidence, something was disclosed that upset us a good deal: we found that an anti-adoption attitude permeated all the bureaucracies involved in the question of adoption. Our terms of reference were to look at it in the context of overseas adoption, not domestic adoption, but there was obviously a flow between the two. When we made our recommendations, we focused obviously on our terms of reference but we have pointed out at every available opportunity that there needs to be an acceptance that adoption is a legitimate way of forming or adding to a family and that that will be in the interest of a child. But we found that the argument that everything must be done in the interests of the child could very often be distorted so that really and truly the outcome was not in the best interests of the child. We looked at the question of domestic adoptions. Last year there were only 65 domestic adoptions of Australian children and some 402 overseas adoptions, but a really horrendous figure is that there were 93 children in New South Wales alone, known to DOCS, who were killed by their biologically connected families. That is a horrendous statistic. Adoption must be considered a legitimate way of providing good families for Australian children.

But to the report: it is a report that relates to overseas adoptions and the difficulties encountered by parents who wish to form a family and to give a happy family and lasting life to the child that they adopt from a country where there are, in accordance with the Hague convention, standards. The countries from which we adopt may not all have been Hague ratifying countries, but there is evidence that shows these are truly children who need love and care within an Australian family.

We were delighted that, first of all, we brought down the report in the last week of the sittings before last Christmas, before we rose, and that by February the Attorney-General had established an interdepartmental committee to discuss the response to our report. We were delighted that we received the response within a really reasonable time. We think it was timely in that we received the response within about nine months of the government considering it. A press release was put out to say that our report was truly the blueprint for reform in this area.

I think the sorts of things that we recommended and that have been accepted are important to itemise. Firstly, we made 27 recommendations. The government accepted 14 outright, three in part and seven in principle, which left three that were not accepted. Of the ones that were accepted, very important were those relating to the need to renegotiate the federal-state agreement. That is the agreement that acknowledges that state governments have the jurisdiction for conferring of adoption status but that the Commonwealth government has the responsibility for making adopted children citizens. In those two areas there is a need to negotiate how we accomplish the adoption of a child who becomes a citizen. We recommended that the federal government must take a far more hands-on approach—it has been very hands-off—and it must take over the responsibility for the negotiation between Australia and other countries for adoption agreements.

In that context of renegotiation, we wanted certain things to occur. We wanted to be able to see how the expedition of an application could occur. We wanted all children to get a birth certificate. For instance, for a child from China, because the adoption is completed in China, all the child really has when it goes to school is a certificate of abandonment. We did not think that was fair on the family or the child. We noted that the Northern Territory had found a way to get a birth certificate and we did not think it was beyond the wit of man for the other states and territories to do so also.

We also wanted much more consultation between government central agencies and those people who want to be parents. We felt that it would be an important thing for state governments to train non-government organisations to be helpful in the whole process of adoption. We wanted DFAT to develop formal protocols to assist people in their adoption when perhaps the file might be a bit slow in going through the country from which the adoption is to take place. There was plenty of evidence of the assistance that DFAT would give, but we wanted to have more formalised protocols. We also thought it was very important that there be money provided by the Commonwealth for a peak body, a non-government organisation involved in the area of adoption, to be formed by the federal government and funded by it so that there really is an official support group.

We thought it was very, very important that there be a harmonisation of the criteria that the different states and territories use for assessing potential parents for suitability, and this is from the Australian side, leaving aside the requirements of the country from which the child to be adopted comes. Those countries put their own limitations on the sorts of people that they may permit to be adopting parents. Some countries overseas may say that they will not allow their children to be adopted by single parents, for instance, but there is a need for harmonisation at the Australian level.

We made the point very strongly that we did not want harmonisation to be a uniform code because we suspected that that might result in them all being unified at the lowest common denominator. We were very keen to see, where some states and territories are doing it better than others, that in fact the better standard should prevail and not be dumbed down simply for the sake of uniform standards. Hence we used that term.

It was also enormously pleasing that, for the first time, in my knowledge, we received a response to our report from the New South Wales government, which had given evidence before us, and the ACT government, which had given evidence before us. All the states and territories except Queensland gave evidence before us. Queensland gave us a written submission but refused to allow any officials or ministers to appear before the committee, which we found very disappointing. Queensland was the jurisdiction that had closed down all opportunity for people to apply to become adopting parents.

But something else important happened. Not only did we get an excellent response from the federal government and responses from the New South Wales and ACT governments but also I was invited to attend, on Thursday last week, a meeting here in Canberra of the intercountry adoption central authorities. I took part in that meeting, which was chaired by the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department but had delegates from all state and territory governments, to discuss how those people who will be charged with the responsibility of implementing our recommendations will implement them and how we as a committee hoped they would be implemented. For me to be able to take part in that discussion with those members of the bureaucracy was heartening indeed. I do not know that it has ever occurred before and I think it was a tremendous breakthrough. That unseen work of the committee system, which in a sense is the essence of parliamentary workings, has not only had a response in the chamber, as it is being discussed now, but also I as chairman was able to take the expressions of the committee as a whole to that meeting on how those recommendations, accepted by government, would be implemented. That was really of tremendous benefit to adopting parents, who are ultimately going to be the beneficiaries of our suggested reforms.

I also would like to make the point that attitudes and cultures come from the top down. In the course of our inquiry we came across people who had newly come into the field—who were coming in with new thinking and new attitudes. That is very encouraging. There are still people working in the field who say that there is no such thing as an anti-adoption culture, that there is nothing wrong with the way they do business and that everything is just fine. I would make the point to those people that, if they would talk to their colleagues who have new thinking and new attitudes—permeating right down to the first encounter that would-be adopting parents have with a central agency—I think it would be very beneficial for all concerned.

Unless there is recognition that there is a problem with an anti-adoption culture, it will never be fixed. Some of it clearly stems from the attitude that came about after the stolen generation report was tabled, but there are lives being put at risk by having a biology-first policy. It is interesting that New South Wales has just got through its parliament legislation which will allow the permanent placement of children without biological-parent consent. That is a real breakthrough because, if you are truly interested in the welfare of the child, the first thing you are going to be interested in is making sure it stays alive.

As I said, in New South Wales, there were 93 deaths last year, and there were deaths in other states as well. Compare that with the fact that there were only 65 adoptions in the entire country domestically but over 400 from overseas—caring parents who want to form a family, which is a legitimate purpose, and do so in the interests of the child. I think a cultural change needs to take place.

The words that we placed on the back of our adoption report came from a young Ethiopian girl of 14 who, with the permission of her adopted father, gave evidence to our committee. She said if she had stayed in Ethiopia as a young woman her life expectancy would be 38, but that here in Australia she had the opportunity to have a wonderful life. To paraphrase her, I think she said that she could be a rock and roll star, she could be a model or she could be a cook: she could be anything she wanted because opportunity was here for her. She brought great joy to the family who had adopted her. Here was an enormously happy child with the prospect of a long and healthy life in front of her.

We all felt that the report we brought down was the right way for Australia to move. We are delighted with the government’s response. We are pleased with having the opportunity of speaking with the bureaucracy about the way in which it can be implemented because, ultimately, the outcome will be for a beautiful family with individuals having opportunities they otherwise would be denied.

Debate (on motion by Mr McMullan) adjourned.