Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

and the Attorney-General confirms that it is the latter—then will the Australian government intervene in such proceedings? And what position will it take if it does? The Attorney-General’s statement leaves all of these issues unclear.

It is not enough to say that the best interests of the child will be the governing criterion, for that statement alone provides no clear guidance as to the policy of the Australian government on any of those issues. It is all very well for the Attorney-General to make his ministerial statement on behalf of the government as if he has done his job in relation to this matter, but all he is doing in reality is deferring the matter to the courts and hoping for the best.

The fact is that he has left a string of key questions unanswered in relation to this matter. Can the Attorney-General assure the Australian parents that they will not face the expense and uncertainty of proceedings in the courts of their adoptive children’s country of origin? For parents concerned about the status of their adopted children, are resources available to answer any questions or specific concerns that they might have? Would Australian government assistance be available to either the birth parents or the natural parents in a circumstance such as the one reported on? Is it a condition of the granting of an adoption visa that the immigration department carry out checks as regards the legitimacy of the adoption agency before the adoption is granted? Are there plans for legislation to deal with the determination of the appropriate parenting orders where there is a dispute as to either the validity of the adoption or the antecedent circumstances in which the adoption occurred? The Attorney-General’s statement provides no guidance to any of these questions.

In addition, there are difficult questions as to the possible conflict of the laws of Australia and the countries of birth of adopted children, compounded by difficulties created by inconsistencies between the different laws of the various states within Australia. A number of these matters were considered by the Bishop inquiry into the adoption of children from overseas in 2005—and I note the member for Mackellar is in the House because of her ongoing and very genuine interest in the issues of adoption, both intercountry and Australian based—and, in September 2006, the previous government accepted the majority of the recommendations, including taking on primary responsibility for the management of intercountry adoption programs and the establishment of new programs. I would refer particularly to recommendation 19 of the report, where the member for Mackellar’s committee found that the responsibility for establishing and managing overseas adoption programs should be:

... transferred to the Attorney-General’s Department in consultation with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs.

Then, further, at recommendation 21, which was very sensible, the committee recommended that:

To assist Australia develop intercountry adoption programs with non-Hague countries, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade authorise AusAID to develop capacity building and governance programs to assist those countries gain Hague Convention accreditation.

These reforms would go a long way towards ensuring that these disastrous cases are not allowed to occur in the future. But I would ask the Attorney-General again: at what stage is the implementation of these recommendations? After 10 to 12 months of government, at what stage are these recommendations that were handed down in 2005 and which the previous government adopted? However, this government needs to take national leadership now to ensure that cases such as this one, where the child has been adopted in Australia from a country prior to that country’s ratification of the Hague convention, do not cause unnecessary trauma to the parents and, most importantly, the child involved. As the Leader of the Opposition said on 23 August:

... we mustn’t undermine confidence nor the ability of Australians to be able to adopt children from overseas. Many of these children desperately need homes. They can only dream of living in a country like Australia with a loving Australian family, and whilst the investigation continues, and we should get to the bottom of it and find out what went wrong, under no circumstances should we move away as Australians from our ability to be able to adopt children from overseas.

Australia’s overseas adoption programs are important. They make lives better. To ensure confidence into the future, and to clarify the situation as regards those affected now, the Attorney-General must take leadership and clarify the policy position on behalf of the government—which, unfortunately, his ministerial statement has failed to do. I seek leave to move a motion to take note of the document.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the House take note of the document.

Debate adjourned.

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