Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Consider this fact: in 1972 there were 9,798 adoptions in Australia. Last year there were 203 domestically and 114 intercountry. In the space of just four decades the number of adoptions has fallen from almost 10,000 to just a couple of hundred a year. This is a truly remarkable decline over a relatively short period of time. It reflects, in part, changing social mores, but it also reflects long delays in the adoption process and also a decreasing emphasis on the welfare and interests of the child in the balance which must be reached.

There are some 15,000 children who have been in out-of-home care for two years or more. They are the ones who are most affected by these changes. A sense of security that a child experiences from his or her earliest days is critical to that child's psychological development. Beginning in the 1950s, the psychiatrist John Bowlby and the developmental psychologist Mary Ainsworth showed that one's early experiences of attachment are critical for all subsequent relationships. The interactions of children with parents establish the powerful dynamics of security and insecurity, with significant implications for subsequent adult relationships. The happiness of adults whose relationships in their early years were secure can differ greatly from that of those whose relationships were problematic and insecure. The latter are more likely to demonstrate either an avoidance of attachment in their later, adult relationships, or anxiety about their relationships, with corresponding behaviours. Children who show signs of insecure attachment, such as avoidant or ambivalent behaviours, most often have parents who are unresponsive or inconsistent in their responses to the children. That is a generalisation.

Indeed, in a recent survey of 36 international studies, Abdul Khaleque and Ronald Rohner from the University of Connecticut concluded that children and adults everywhere—regardless of differences in race, culture, and gender—tend to respond in exactly the same way when they perceive themselves to be rejected by their caregivers and other attachment figures:

In our half-century of international research, we've not found any other class of experience that has as strong and consistent effect on personality and personality development as does the experience of rejection, especially by parents in childhood.

The circumstances of a child's early life are critical, therefore, to his or her future relationships and happiness. If those years are marked by insecurity and uncertainty, loss of contact with a parent, shifting caregivers or inconsistent parenting, the child is likely to suffer the impact into his or her adult years. As Professor Scott Stanley observes:

Attachment is an unalterable, important human need and reality, and how attachment systems form in individuals really matters for everything else that really matters.

Let me repeat:

… how attachment systems form in individuals really matters for everything else that really matters.

This is of very profound significance for so many children in our society.

Let me relate these general observations to adoption. As Associate Professor Michael Tarren-Sweeney of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand has observed:

The single most important intervention that can protect the development and wellbeing of children who have an ongoing need for care, is identifying them at the earliest possible age, and intervening decisively.

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The strongest predictor of the presence, severity and complexity of mental health difficulties is a child's age at entry into care, with entry at younger ages being much less protective.

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Once a child is in care, placement insecurity and instability negatively affects their development.

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For children to have the best chance at normal development, they need to be bonded to adults who provide life-long unconditional love and stability. Adoption provides this above temporary foster care or permanent care orders that end at 18 years.

That is why this issue is so important. I congratulate my honourable friend for bringing it before the parliament. It is something which deserves renewed attention, and I hope this debate gives it.

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