Brett Raguse (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with a lot of pride and pleasure that I rise tonight to bring this motion before the chamber. In fact, on 19 February last year in my first speech to the House, and in subsequent speeches, I mentioned issues of adoption. Tonight, roughly 12 months on from my first speech, I will say a little bit more about the issues of adoption. For those who may remember part of that speech, it was about my own family circumstances. I was born in 1960 and my mother was only 17 years of age and single. It was just one of those things that women at that stage had no support if they were not married, and in her circumstances she lived in the family home sharing with 12 other brothers and sisters. She was the oldest of 12, so it was clear that I was not able to be cared for within that normal family situation.

I bring that to notice tonight because this is really about a wonderful innovation to recognise adoption in all its forms. There are other speakers who may talk about various forms of adoption, but it really is about bringing before the chamber the notion that National Adoption Awareness Week is very important for a whole range of reasons. It lifts the lid and takes away the secrecy that surrounded and still surrounds adoption to this day. I should say that it is an interesting time because Queensland has been the last state in the country to finally open up the adoption registers.

When I was born, in 1960, the adoption rolls were closed, so information about my birth and a whole range of other family information could not be given. In fact, by 1964 it was completely silent. In my family, it was something I was always made aware of as I was growing up. As a very young child I was told that it was a great thing because my parents had chosen me and that I was very lucky to be raised in that particular family. I had a great upbringing. I love my parents dearly, but I also knew that there was another side to who I was. I was 29 before I found my natural family. That was after many years of digging through files and information. In Queensland it was essentially illegal to have any understanding of who your natural family was or have a connection with them. So it is important to have this motion before the House tonight about National Adoption Awareness Week.

It is important for people like me who, back in the late eighties, fought very hard in Queensland to get the original changes to the legislation—to open up those files to some degree—with a whole lot of protection that was absolutely essential at the time. Nearly 20 years on, it is time for the Queensland government to act. It has acted proactively, in fact, and put legislation into the house. As there has been an election called in Queensland today, some of that legislation might take a little bit longer to be finalised. But the reality is that there is the intent by both sides of that chamber that adoption and finally getting away from the secrecy that surrounded it are very important issues. For me, as a child growing up, adoption was spoken about as though there were something wrong. It was something that should not be talked about. In fact, whenever family history was discussed at school, I would say, ‘Miss,’—or ‘Sir,’—‘I do not know my background because I am adopted.’ And my teachers would take me aside and say, ‘That is something you cannot talk about.’ So it had that certain level of secrecy.

I am very pleased, of course, with the work done nationally and by other state governments in Australia towards opening up those registers and allowing information to be provided. I will give you an example of how this information can be so important. I have four children. When my wife was pregnant with our first child, the specialists wanted to know my family history—diseases and a whole range of things. I said simply: ‘I am adopted. I have no access to that.’ He was absolutely horrified. At that time—certainly in his practice and in his way of operating—it was understood that adoption had a whole lot of limitations. Laws have changed when it comes to medical information, and I think National Adoption Awareness Week allows people to talk openly about adoption—it is not a scourge or a disease; it is a family situation. I had a wonderful life growing up. I have met all my natural family now, through a whole range of opportunities. It is a great family, and the member for Moreton knows some of them very well. I will be very pleased to hear other members talk about their personal experiences in relation to this motion before the House. Finally the shutters have come up and it is something that we can talk about. All of us are very proud of this motion. I am very proud to have been an adoptee and very proud to have had an influence in changing the laws in Queensland.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to commend and support this motion by the member for Forde. This motion recognises the importance of National Adoption Awareness Week and the significance of encouraging adoptees, adoptive parents and biological parents to open and continue the dialogue on adoption in Australia, and to encourage people to discuss how adoption has impacted on their lives. The second part of the motion calls on all governments, both state and federal, to support all participants in the adoption process. I congratulate the member for Forde on his contribution and look forward to hearing the other members speak on this issue—particularly the member for Fadden, because he usually makes a very worthy and valuable contribution.

As the House knows, I was fostered. It was interesting to listen to the member for Forde speak about his experiences as an adoptee, especially because of my experiences as a foster child. I was fostered in 1961. The stigma around a foster child was totally different to that for a child who was adopted. The children who lived at the top of my street were adopted, and no-one spoke about it; but the fact that I was fostered and could still have access to my real family meant there was a totally different outlook and attitude. I think it was a great contribution and it was interesting to hear the member for Forde’s story and his obvious love and passion for the family that adopted him.

I strongly support this motion as it is important to ensure the safety and security that as a community we are obliged to provide our children with. This is about children who are in need of care and comfort not only from adoptive parents but also from foster parents, kinship carers, general home based carers, intensive home carers and grandparent carers.

I have spoken about Grandcare programs and fostering in this House before, and I reiterate that this is about our duty as a society to nourish, care for and protect children in our society. In my first speech in this place I spoke about my own experience as a foster child. I also spoke about the young girl, Shellay Ward, who died in New South Wales in 2007 through neglect by her parents. Her name should live on and be a continuous reminder to us that, as a civilised society, we do fail children sometimes and the worst possible consequences arise when we fail them. We must remain ever-vigilant in all aspects of caring for our children.

Last year I was invited to promote the positive aspects of being a foster child on Radio 6PR in Perth, and I urged people who were considering fostering to take the step and make the commitment. I look forward to speaking at the upcoming Australian Foster Care Conference dinner in Perth in late March. The theme of the conference is ‘You raise me up’—what a great name that is; it is so relevant to the issue.

Back to adoption, I have a brother who was adopted and whom I have never met, but I would certainly like to thank his adoptive parents and all the adoptive parents in Australia who have taken the step. The simple fact is that there are now not enough of them. The process for adopting children in Australia is administered by each state and territory. The process for adopting children intercountry falls under the Immigration (Guardianship of Children) Act 1946.

There are some amazing facts about adoption, which has seen a steady decline in Australia since 1969. I fear that we have painted ourselves into a corner with regulation, as we now adopt more children from overseas than we do from within Australia. Figures provided to me from the Parliamentary Library show that in the year 1981-82 only six per cent of all adoptions in this country were from overseas. In the years 2007-08, that figure has increased to 61 per cent. In the same year, 23 per cent of adoptions were ‘known child’ adoptions, which are adoptions of children who are Australian residents and have a pre-existing relationship with the adoptive parent or parents. It includes step-parents, other relatives and carers. The remaining 16 per cent of adoptions were local adoptions.

One may ask why we are now adopting more children from outside Australia. Before I give some of the reasons, let me give another fact about adoptions which gives an indication of how the face of adoption in Australia has changed. In 2007-08, there were 440 adoptions in Australia—down from almost 10,000 in 1971-72. The report Adoptions Australia 2007-08 states that these trends coincide with declining fertility rates and an increasing proportion of children born outside registered marriage—which I think we used to know as ‘outside wedlock’. Other reasons are the availability of effective birth control and the emergence of family planning centres combined with the increased social acceptance of raising children outside of a marriage—as I am currently doing myself.

My experience as a foster child was positive. I lived with a loving, caring family who provided me with a positive outlook. They provided me with the security that children look for, and I encourage all parents to take the step to adopt or foster. (Time expired)

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like the member for Forde, I am an adoptee. I was adopted from New Zealand by two very loving parents who continue to support me in all my endeavours. As the member for Forde said, when we were growing up in the 1960s there was a stigma attached to children who were adopted. I always knew that I was adopted, and I think that is a really good thing and it made understanding it a lot easier. But, like the member for Forde said in terms of his experience at school, it was through regular interaction and telling people, ‘I am adopted’ that you found that people looked at you in a different way and you were told that this was not the sort of thing that you should be saying. I got it from one of my cousins, who said that I must feel very lucky that I had been adopted and that I should be grateful to my parents for adopting me. There was a stigma attached in the manner in which it was said, and this is something that National Adoption Awareness Week is about trying to break down. It is about trying to make sure that we are able to talk about our experiences and that we feel free to go and find our birth parents, if that is what we choose.

I waited until I was well into my 30s before I decided to look for my birth parent. My wife at the time was probably more excited than me and encouraged me to do it. Part of the reason that I did not do it earlier was the stigma that was there. I also felt some sense of betrayal to my actual parents in taking this particular step, but I can say that I am really glad that I did take it. I have a fantastic relationship with both my adoptive parents and my birth mother and birth family. In my adopted family I have a sister but with my birth family I now have two brothers, whom I am in regular contact with. In fact in the next month or so I will travel to New Zealand to be with one of my brothers and his partner for the birth of their first child. So you suddenly have access to this enormous new family and it is incredibly rewarding.

It is also an incredibly difficult thing for all of the people involved. Obviously the people here can see the emotion that is still there when I talk about this. But that emotion should not be there in some senses. That is part of the issue and the problem in this—we are made to feel that there is something wrong with our upbringing; that adoption is the wrong thing to do and that in some senses we have failed. Of course that is not true. My birth mother did not tell her family—her husband whom she married subsequent to me being born and her children—about me. When contact was made that caused all sorts of problems for her—having to sit down with her husband and say, ‘Look, I’ve had a child before and he’s been in contact.’ But she always carried a photo of me in her diary.

Clearly this was a woman who had gone through a great deal of pain after our separation. It was a difficult thing for her to do but she did not hesitate—in New Zealand they had an adoption system that was more advanced than the Queensland system in that it had been open for many years—and she put her name down hoping that one day it would happen even though she knew it would completely upset her life in terms of her new family. I can say that it has been an incredibly rewarding experience for all of us. It is something that this motion goes to in terms of trying to make adoption more open so that people are able to speak about it and so that people are encouraged to unite, and these sorts of experiences—which was a very happy one for me, even though it might not sound like that—can actually take place. I commend the motion to the House.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I find myself in distinguished company, but unlike those who have spoken before me I have no background in this area. The members who have spoken of their experiences, whether of adoption or of fostering, certainly have my deep respect. I literally have no concept of the circumstances and the challenges that they have faced in their lives but it appears that they have gone on to do very well and I would like to think that the challenges they have faced in the past have made them better men. I am sure that is the case.

The issue of adoption is something that I have had quite a deal of interest in. As I said, I have no background in it but I know someone who is working in the sector as a psychologist and I have slowly begun to formulate some views on the circumstances and the backgrounds that face those who wish to adopt in this country now.

As has been said before, these are different times. There was a stigma involved for some in certain circumstances in the past—unmarried mothers or mothers who faced pressure to give up their children for a number of reasons, but basically because they were alone; they did not have husbands. We have moved on from those days. It is seen as much more acceptable for mothers to raise children even if they do not have a partner. But I have a great regard for those who have adopted in the past and those who are seeking to adopt now.

In this time, when we have an increasing amount of infertility problems in this country, it seems that there is a progression of facing one’s infertility issues and then maybe thinking about another step: adoption. Adoption these days is a very different matter. In the past, I understand, for those who adopted it was basically lock, stock and barrel—‘You have a new child’—and what was in the past was completely in the past. Obviously things have moved on, and that is excellent. These days, as I know from the experiences of my friend in Western Australia, we have a situation where the adoption of Australian-born children is very rare; we are talking more about overseas adoptions. There is now an obligation for the parents doing the adoption that they embrace and work with the culture of the child whom they are adopting. In many ways, I get the feeling that adoption, sadly for those people who are looking for this sort of option, is no substitute for the ability to have one’s own child.

Those who wish to adopt are doing a great thing—to hopefully provide a child with a better life and more opportunities. That is great, and it is to be commended, but they need to realise that there are a lot of responsibilities now and that it is not like it might have been 20 or 30 years ago. Most of that is obviously for the best, but they should be very clear about it possibly not being everything they were looking for.

The other thing that I would say is that—although in Western Australia you can now sign up for adoptions when you are up to 45 years old—because there is such a shortage of children who can be adopted from overseas, they are now saying that there is almost no chance of it being successful unless you start at the age of 38 or earlier. I will finish quickly by saying that I have a great regard for those who have been adopted and those people doing the adopting. This country has greatly advanced and is more advanced than it was. (Time expired)

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the members for Swan, Dobell and Cowan for their contributions, and particularly the member for Forde for putting this motion before the House. They are all part of the group of 42 first elected on 24 November 2007. I particularly acknowledge the member for Forde because his natural family comes from St George, my home town. We shared our first day in parliament together. It was the day of the apology to the children of the stolen generations, perhaps the best day we will ever have in this House. My big sister Debbie was here in Canberra that day. She has always been very important in my life and was like a mum in a lot of ways. Debbie and I have talked a lot about how those Indigenous women must have felt to have no say and no choice about the removal of their children. These children were not removed to homes filled with love and hope. Nowadays, people are quite desperate to adopt, as we heard from earlier speakers, and there is a good chance that any adopted child will be well loved and well cared for. However, the removed ATSI children were almost treated as slaves or navvies. In my sister Debbie’s words, ‘I don’t know how they survived.’ They certainly deserved an apology on that, our first day in parliament.

My sister Debbie was born in December 1958. Our father left home when she was 13 and Debbie had to take up a lot of the parenting burden as my mother went back to full-time nursing. She finished year 10 at the St George State School in November 1973, which was as high as you could go in that town. Despite our tough economic circumstances, my mum wanted Debbie to go away to a Catholic boarding school so that she could complete senior year like our older brother, David. However, in what must have been a very interesting exchange in a change room at Hannah’s in Toowoomba while Debbie was trying on her new school uniform for years 11 and 12, she told my mum that she was pregnant. She told me that she did it in a public place in front of a lot of witnesses so that mum could not kill her.

I do not recall Debbie going off to Darwin a few months later for a holiday with our cousins, the McSkimmings, but she must have because a baby was born on 23 June 1974 at the Royal Darwin Hospital. Debbie called the baby Daniel but never saw him. At the time of the birth that scared little fifteen-year-old girl was doped to the eyeballs she said. She never saw the nursery and never saw the baby. She was in a public ward with a lot of very elderly Aboriginal ladies. She remembers that the one next to her was very nice to her and helped her a lot. She was told by the authorities that the little boy had been adopted to a family either in Darwin or possibly Adelaide.

Debbie heard the babies crying off in the distance in the hospital and it made her milk come in. Was it the crying of her baby that prompted this physical process? She only recalled this memory and wondered about it in the last month—prompted by her interaction with her nephew, my son Leo Perrett. Physiologically, she did not understand her physical response as a 15-year-old, but she now wonders if she heard her own baby’s call down the corridor.

After the birth Debbie moved back to St George, got a job and looked after me and my younger siblings. She met a good man called Philip, and when things started to get serious she thought she had better tell him about her son. Of course, in the way of small towns, Philip already knew about him.

That little boy born in the Royal Darwin Base Hospital was adopted by two wonderful people called Hans and Mavis. They always told their son Andrew Garbe that he was adopted, as was his younger sister. Hans and Mavis also encouraged Andrew to find his birth parents. Andrew was around 15 or 16 when he started looking. That is when Debbie was about 30. She had her 50th birthday in Glen Innes in December last year.

My sister Debbie never put her name on the contact register because she felt she had given up the right to seek out her son—that is, if he had not been told by his parents that he was adopted then she had no right to contact him and tell him so. Debbie was contacted by the adoption agency in Darwin by registered mail on 2 June 2008. She was asked whether she was the person who had been in Darwin in 1974 and was told that a young man was seeking family. Debbie felt nervous, apprehensive, excited, emotional and upset. But then she had to put all those emotions on hold and tell her three girls, Christine, Tricia and Leanne, that they had a brother. My nieces’ initial reaction was surprise that they were never told this great family secret, despite their eight uncles and aunts drinking around them so much over the years. After that they were just glad their new sibling was a boy, rather than a new sister to argue with.

On Tuesday, 3 June, Debbie contacted the agency and said that she could either write to her son or leave her phone number. She left her number and three hours later she had her first conversation with her 34-year-old son. There were a lot of tears. They tried again the next day and there were still more tears, but they kept calling and crying and laughing. Debbie says it was unbelievable—like a part of her that had gone had come back again. I have seen my son Leo change so much in the last five weeks, whereas she had 34 years of catching up to do with someone that she did not know.

Debbie and Philip flew up to Darwin on 1 August and met Andrew for the first time. He also met his sister Leanne, who coincidentally had already arranged to go to Darwin. The immanent will that stirs and urges everything moves in mysterious ways. Andrew is a great bloke—when I look at him I see family. There are so many things that are nature over nurture. He has a love of books and reading, and also needs a bit of time out. (Time expired)

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being almost 8.30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 41. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.