Nickolas Varvaris (Barton, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Citizenship Amendment (Intercountry Adoption) Bill 2014 is the first key in the necessary reforms that the coalition is committed to so that children can be granted loving parents and a secure home. This bill is key in allowing for automatic Australian citizenship to be granted to children adopted by Australian citizens under bilateral adoption arrangements between Australia and countries that are not party to the Hague Convention on intercountry adoption.

Currently, children who are adopted through bilateral arrangements do not inherit automatic citizenship. Parents must organise a child category visa, for adopted children to come to Australia, even though the adoption process is correct and accepted both domestically and internationally. Clearly, this imposes both additional costs and delay to the child and to the prospective parents. Yet those who are adopted through the Hague Convention, are given Australian citizenship status without the waiting times for a visa to come through. These children are able to be flown to Australia and start their new lives immediately.

This bill allows for this key amendment so that adopted children become citizens just as those born in Australia are citizens and are permitted to travel to our shores as Australian citizens to start a new life with their family. This bill will expand the current scope of the Hague Convention, so that the same permits are incorporated under bilateral agreements and children adopted from either arrangement have the same benefits. The coalition is committed to helping Australian families to be united with their adopted children within an appropriate time frame to minimise the emotional ramifications of lengthy waiting times.

Australia has currently one of the lowest intercountry adoption rates in the developed world. Two out of five adoptions in Australia are of children born overseas, with statistics showing only 129 adoptions for Australian couples in the year 2012-13. Of these adoptions, 61 adoptions were under the Hague Convention, with 68 from non-Hague adoptions. Statistics also show that on average the waiting time for intercountry adoptions was about five years as of 2013. Back in 2007-08, the waiting time on average was three years.

Overall adoption from overseas has decreased by 13 per cent. Whilst there are many factors which contribute to the overall decline in intercountry adoption of children by Australian parents, no doubt, the average waiting time of five years is a major deterrent for parents seeking to adopt a child from overseas. The waiting period is a combination of the process of adoption plus the time it takes for the child to be granted a visa to arrive in Australia.

Australia's intercountry adoption process is both state and federally governed. Whilst it is always prudent that we have disciplined visa requirements and entry permits, we must also not allow it to impede with the best interests of the child. As I previously mentioned, the median length of waiting periods for intercountry adoption has increased continuously since 2012, from 37 months or three years to 61 months or five years and, in some cases, up 10 years.

Whilst the reasons behind this can be attributed to an increase in processing times in the countries of origin from where the child was born and the bureaucracy of application, it is fundamentally distressing for all parties involved when there is false hope of a successful adoption when a visa is delayed and their child remains in their original surroundings.

Although Australia currently places no cap on the number of child visas it grants per year, the federal government department of immigration sets the quotas for child visas to be granted each year meaning that there is a backlog with each successful applicant waiting for a child visa to be granted to their adoptee. Requests for child visas far exceed the quotas set per year and are a major contributing factor to delays between the time the adoption application is successful to the time the child is united in Australia with his or her adoptee parents.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection has confirmed in the recent government's interim report on intercountry adoption that the process time for adoption visas can exceed 12 months depending on the location and complexity of cases. Thus to have a successful adoption application only to be thwarted by the outcome of a child visa does not make sense for what should be a seamless and joyful process.

The coalition is committed to lifting Australia's intercountry adoption statistics to reflect the needs of the parents and child, and this bill today is one step in the right direction to enable important streamlining for overseas adoption. Making important reforms to the current immigration and citizenship requirements so that one aspect of the intercountry adoption process is easier and quicker will benefit children awaiting new homes and encourage willing Australian parents to adopt without being hampered by unnecessary visa waiting times.

I would like to reiterate that this bill is important to relieve some of the frustrations that current and prospective parents experience in the adoption process. It is an important first step for all parents wishing to adopt. The essence of time is pertinent to intercountry adoptions, which are inherently about giving children better lives.

This bill seeks to amend the existing Migration Regulations 1994 by allowing automatic citizenship for children adopted by Australian parents, the current benefit enjoyed by those adopted under the Hague Convention. There is great value in having greater efficiency in the intercountry adoption process, which prioritises the needs of the children. This bill is focused on the needs of children and is not about reducing the due diligence of the adoption process. This bill seeks to eliminate the unnecessary waiting time for a child to step foot on Australian soil by granting automatic citizenship to those adopted outside of the Hague Convention.

As an Australian and as a member of the coalition, I hope that those on the other side would agree with me that Australia is right in recognising all children, whether domestically or abroad, who cannot be brought up with their respective family are entitled to grow up in a stable, secure and loving family. By allowing this bill to be implemented, we can unite children who are in need of stability with their new loving families in an appropriate and timely manner.

I commend this bill to the house.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I very much appreciate the chance to speak on this very important bill. In my first speech in this parliament I spoke about the special interests that I have in the welfare of children.

I am someone who has my own child, I have fostered children in the past and I am also a member of parliament who is interested in pursuing good public policy. I think all those lead you to really think about the special role that we play in this House in protecting children.

In speaking today in this bill on intercountry adoption, I want to revisit some of the statements I have made and talk about how any policy that we put in place in this House to extend adoption needs to be very balanced and it needs to put the interests of children first. In many instances this is going to mean facilitating the smoother passage of intercountry adoptions, and that of course is the subject of the bill today. But in doing so we have to ensure that Australia keeps the safeguards in place that will make sure that children are protected.

This bill has been under debate in this House for a number of months now. During the sitting break we had an incident that I guess you could say exploded in the media around Australia of issues relating to the surrogacy program that is in place in Thailand at the moment. This bill, of course, is not to do surrogacy. I raise that simply to make the point that for people of goodwill and good-thinking people, it is almost unimaginable that there are people out there in the world who will seek to use things like surrogacy and adoption for ill means. But I think we all discovered that the issues relating to baby Gammy in Thailand illustrate that there are people out there who will try to use these types of systems for really evil acts. I just want to reiterate today that what we have to strive for in this parliament is to find the right balance. I appreciate, I accept and I applaud families who go through intercountry adoption to bring children who are living in very difficult circumstances in other countries in the world—in countries where they will never have anything like the opportunities that Australian children will get—and that adoption is a very legitimate and laudable way for many Australians who cannot have children or perhaps who want to have a larger family. But there are risks and I think we need to be alive to those.

The bill before us today seeks to amend the Australian Citizenship Act so children who are adopted directly from nations who are not signatories to the Hague convention are granted Australian citizenship. That sounds a little bit complicated but what we are really saying here with the bill that we put forward today is that we are broadening the range of countries from which children can be adopted and actually become Australian citizens overseas. So it will help people who are adopting from those countries to have a smoother and simpler transition for their new child in the family to become an Australian citizen.

The amendments we are talking about today follow work undertaken by the interdepartmental committee on intercountry adoption, which made actually quite a significant series of recommendations about how intercountry adoption can be made easier. One of those recommendations was that we allow citizenship to be extended for countries that are not signatories to the Hague convention. I know that this issue is one that the community feels really strongly about, because we are talking about the welfare of children here. There is nothing better than giving a child a home who would otherwise not have one or not be in a safe and loving home. For adoption to be made smoother means that more children can potentially be welcomed into those situations in Australia.

Australians are, I think, by heart generous people and we have a long and proud history of welcoming people overseas to start new lives here. In my own electorate of Hotham, the history of migration in that area can be seen up and down almost every street along the suburbs that I represent. There are hundreds of instances every year where that is facilitated through intercountry adoption. We see somewhere between 100 and 400 families a year.

We have quite a long history of intercountry adoption in Australia. I would say that, while a vast majority of adoptions have been happy stories of creating larger and nicer families for people, there have been issues with some of those instances in the past. Through the 20th century it has become a lot easier for people to move around and forge connections. The issue of intercountry adoption has evolved and as it evolves and as people can travel more easily, the need for regulation has in one sense increased.

It is with that knowledge that Australia signed up to the Hague convention on protection of children and cooperation in respect of intercountry adoption. Australia signed up to that in 1998 and it put in place really important principles that should govern how these agreements are put into effect. I think the first one is really the most fundamental of those principles, and that is that intercountry adoption should only take place when it is in the best interests of the child and with respect to his or her fundamental rights. The Hague convention also established cooperative system amongst contracting states so that safeguards are respected and the abduction, sale of and trafficking in children is prevented. The third critical principle of that agreement was to ensure that contracting states like Australia recognise adoptions that are made in accordance with the convention. From those principles you can see that what the Hague convention is really trying to do is create a network of countries around the world who all share this strong view that intercountry adoptions should only take place when they are in the best interests of the child.

There are many families in Australia that would love to give a home to a child but are unable to have children themselves. These families often turn to adoption. I am very sympathetic about the plight of any family who want a child and have a lovely home to offer but are just unable to have a baby. As a mother I can say I know how devastating it would be not to be able to have a child for someone that desires that in their lives. I know, by and large, that families who are seeking to adopt from overseas do want to help vulnerable children. Of course, these incidences that I referred to earlier are very much the minority, but the amount of human pain and agony that is in each of those instances is so profound and so great that we simply must have laws in place to provide those protections. And when it comes to children, before almost anyone else in our society, it really is the law and it is this parliament and the people that stand in this parliament that provide those checks and balances to make sure that vulnerable children are not taken advantage of. It is the sentiment of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to respect and protect a child's interests and needs that finds expression in the Hague convention that I have talked about. We need to ensure that this sentiment finds expression in the legislation today.

I want to talk a little bit about the specific provisions of this legislation. There are many countries around the world that are signatories to the Hague convention in those countries have signed up to the principles I have talked about. But there is a view that, having signed up for those principles, Australia confers a certain, I guess, smooth transition of young children who come through that adoption program for signatories to the Hague convention. The legislation here is really extending those privileges, if you want, to a few countries that are not part of the Hague convention.

We on this side of the House will support the amendments and the general objectives of the bill, but I do want to talk a little more about the risks in place here. We are effectively removing a protection that was provided to children who might be adopted into Australia. In relatively recent times, we have seen adoption programs in parts of the world that are not signatories to the Hague convention not working very well and not protecting the interests of children. We have seen, very sadly and unfortunately, the Ethiopia-Australia intercountry adoption program closed. That was closed by the former Labor government because, in all honesty, the ministers who were responsible for overseeing the program could not be confident that the best interests of children were being protected by the partner country. One of the reasons that led to the closure of the program was Australia being able to identify orphanages in which it could have confidence as well as the increasing competition for overseas adoption in Ethiopia, which led to a very large increase in non-government agencies operating there. In that particular program, the quality of those agencies and the nature of the competitive system that had developed were reasons for deep concern, and we were hearing significant and frequent reports of issues.

To in any way trade children in a competitive system runs absolutely counter to the spirit in which almost all families go into the adoption process and counter to the Hague convention of which Australia is signatory. But these will remain a risk when we are dealing with nations that are not signatories to the Hague convention. We need to make sure that there are stringent safeguards in place if we are going to deal with countries as though they are part of the Hague convention, after all the focus on adoption must always be finding a family for the child not finding a child for families. It is paramount that we remember that children are at the centre of this process and it is their protection that is the most important thing. That ultimately should be what drives all of our legislation in this very important area.

Labor will support this bill, but there are reservations around this issue which I think anyone in this House would have to share, especially given the events that transpired with the Thailand surrogacy program over the last few months. But, of course, we do not want to stand in the path of the new happy families that can be created through intercountry adoption. There is no doubt that one of the greatest gifts Australia can give to children anywhere in the world is a safe and loving home for a child that does not have. There are 129 children who are living in loving homes now with a future full of possibilities in Australia. Those children were all adopted, I think, over the last 12 months. When we look at where those children have come from, the reality is that about half of them come from places that are not signatories to the Hague convention, so there is a need to try to provide a better process for intercountry adoption from those countries.

We can make adoption simpler. We can make it safe. We are very prosperous. We are generous here in Australia. We can give so many children good lives. That is why Labor will support a streamlined process for intercountry adoption that provides safeguards for children, and that is why I stand in support of this bill today.

Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Intercountry Adoption) Bill 2014. I have had an interest in matters relating to intercountry adoption over a long period of time. My comments may in fact take a different perspective in part to that put by the member who preceded me. I have no personal interest in the issue of intercountry adoption. I have been fortunate to have children of my own and grandchildren. But I do know people who are relatively close to me who have sought to adopt children who find it in enormously difficult to do so. In part, I have come to a view that a lot of the bureaucracy that has been developed over time has been designed to limit the opportunities for overseas adoption rather than to promote the opportunities overseas adoption. I think that is an unfortunate outcome because there are children in great need of assistance abroad and there are Australian couples who are unable to have children of their own who would be loving parents. To be able to match them, in my judgement, is something that should be encouraged. I have had people who I have known who have adopted children. I have seen them brought up and I know that that family has provided that sort of environment for the child.

This legislation needs to be understood in the context of some fundamental changes that the government is intending. I want to put that beyond doubt. While the legislation itself deals particularly with the need to facilitate the grant of Australian citizenship to children adopted by Australian citizens under bilateral adoption arrangements between Australia and countries that are not a party to the Hague convention on intercountry adoption, this measure will ensure that such children who otherwise would have required a passport from their home country will be able to travel on an Australian document on the basis of their Australian citizenship. That will facilitate their entry to Australia being undertaken far more quickly and easily than might have otherwise been the case. That is what the bill does.

But if you go to the Prime Minister's speech introducing this—and this is an unusual bill in the sense that, while it deals with the citizenship issues relating to intercountry adoption, the Prime Minister wanted to make it clear, and I want to agree with him, that for too long it has been too hard to adopt—he said that for too long this has been a no-go zone. The Prime Minister makes it clear that there are too many children who have no parents, or no effective parents, who deserve a better life and that adoption is a way of giving it to them. I could not agree more. He went on:

The government wants to make it easier to adopt when it is in the best interests of the child. We do not want to repeat the mistakes of the past, but we do want to remove the red tape—

and those factors that reduce delays. And further, the Prime Minister said:

So in December last year I announced that the government would improve overseas adoption by the end of this year.

The government has been delivering on it. He went on:

… the government has considered a report by senior officials on options to reform overseas adoption which was informed by over 100 submissions from the public.

The Prime Minister then said:

We have announced improvements to the process for families adopting children from Taiwan and South Korea.

We have opened a new overseas adoption program with South Africa—and are commencing discussions with seven other countries …

He further made it clear that the Council of Australian Governments, COAG, had agreed in principle to a new national overseas adoption service from 2015. Then he spoke of the matters that the Minister for Immigration was dealing with.

Why do I take an interest in these matters? It may surprise you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but back in March 1991, I addressed a question to the then minister for immigration, Gerry Hand. I asked him about consultations taking place between the government sector and non-government organisations and about resolutions of the Social Welfare Administrators Conference that were made in June 1990 on the issue of overseas adoptions. I believe that was when it was decided that all states should close their intercountry adoption registers. I asked why, because it seemed to me that we were making it more difficult for prospective parents to be able to adopt. I asked whether it was resolved to consider new programs only at the request of government-recognised welfare authorities and, if so, why? I also asked:

Does the term "government recognised welfare authorities" include both overseas adoption agencies that have been recognised or registered by the Government and the appointed adoption authority of that country, in the terminology used in principle 3 of the Joint Committee report of April 1986.

I was particularly concerned that what we had seen was a closing of registers that enabled children to be accessed. I was concerned that there were some, I think, prejudicial views that had informed this discussion. I raised that matter because, in 1994, I had the opportunity to do what members opposite are now doing and that is speaking to a bill introduced by the then government. That bill, the Immigration (Guardianship of Children) Amendment Bill 1993 gave certain guardianship powers of non-citizen children to state and territory governments rather than to the federal minister. While we did not stand in the way of it, I was concerned at the way in which a lot of the decisions had been made in this area. I want to repeat what I had to say in 1994 because I thought it was particularly germane at the time. While the opposition did support the bill at that time I did say that, having previously held some responsibility as shadow minister for immigration, I was not comfortable with a lot of the secrecy and the approaches between the Commonwealth and states, and meetings involving state welfare ministers in the various practices that states sought to put in place.

I was concerned that at that time Western Australia had had an inquiry in relation to overseas adoptions and in that inquiry they had found concerns about early Australian practices in relation to domestic adoptions involving Aboriginal children where it was alleged that, in some cases, children were removed from their families and placed in foster care situations in Australia. Because of the issues in relation to separated children we were being asked to take a much more critical view of the way in which overseas adoptions might be considered. It impacted upon the way in which state government officials were advising their governments on the way in which these issues should be addressed. It troubled me as to whether that was the appropriate way for overseas adoptions to be considered.

When Deborra-Lee Furness established her adoption awareness program through the creation of the National Adoption Awareness Week—she was one of the creators and patrons of the Lighthouse Foundation—there was a new enthusiasm to look at overseas adoption. I want to single her out as someone who has, I think, helped to change attitudes in relation to these matters. I think she helped to familiarise the Prime Minister with the need for these reforms. In a sense I am disappointed that, in dealing with the states, as I had to when I was the Attorney-General, in discussing some of these issues I found there was not a ready acceptance, as I think has now emerged, to entertain a number of these issues.

I go back to the comments of the member for Hotham. In terms of the Hague convention and the issues that go to the need to provide appropriate care for children I do not wish to see those matters in any way compromised. But I think we need to ensure that where Australians have satisfied the requirements to be prospective adoptive parents they should not be unreasonably excluded, as I think many are, left waiting, sometimes until they are then judged to be too old to adopt, when there are so many children living in institutional care abroad, who, if they were able to come to Australia would have a better life.

I think long-term institutional care is much less satisfactory than putting children into a loving family relationship where they are able to be fully supported. In fact, if you look at the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, you will see that it says:

… the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding …

That starts to put this issue into perspective. This legislation is important because it starts to reposition Australia in these matters. I strongly support the legislation, but I look forward to the further measures that the government is intending to press.

I again reiterate my personal admiration for Deborra-Lee Furness for the leadership she has taken in this area and for the way in which she has started to change community attitudes. In my view, over time, many more children will be able to be more adequately assisted and will be able to live far more satisfactory lives than if they were left in institutional care abroad.

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

I rise today to speak on the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Intercountry Adoption) Bill 2014 and commend the contributions made by other speakers. The key feature of this bill is to facilitate the grant of Australian citizenship to children adopted by Australian citizens by expanding the scope of existing Hague convention provisions to non-Hague states through bilateral adoption arrangements. While Labor supports changes that will enable parents to avoid red tape and any increased confusion, it is important to raise the significance of maintaining stringent safeguards to protect the children from exposure to abduction and trafficking. I am sad to see that even on the ABC news tonight we have examples of when this can go wrong, whatever safeguards are set up.

In Australia, intercountry adoption is regulated through Commonwealth and state and territory legislation. We heard the Chief Government Whip detail some of the challenges that come with our Federation and having some harmony. The Commonwealth is responsible for establishing and managing intercountry adoption programs and, under this responsibility, they are accountable for the rights and protection of the child as well as ensuring that all contracting states recognise the objectives set out in the Hague convention, such as specific safeguards.

Australia has a long history of involvement in intercountry adoption. Immediately after World War II there was a great effort by Australian families to adopt children from overseas following the Second World War, but it was not until the Vietnam War that significant numbers of adopted children began to arrive in Australia and be placed with families. During the 20th century, thousands of children were deported from the United Kingdom to its colonies, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and other, former colonies. Between 1912 and 1970, about 7,000 of these children were sent to Australia to populate a nation with what was called at the time 'good white stock'. They were promised that loving families were waiting to adopt them. Sadly, many were delivered into institutionalised abuse. Well-known national charities such as Barnardos provided a wider range of child care services, along with the Church of England, the Methodist Church, the Salvation Army and, obviously, the Catholic Church. The children were separated from their families and told that they were orphans, while the parents were told they had gone to a better life, but most were brought up in institutions or by farmers and, sadly, many were treated as child slave labour, and that might have been the best that happened to them. The migrated children were euphemistically told that they would find an idyllic lifestyle in our new country—a land of sunshine and oranges. In reality, they were often badly cared for, counted as second-class citizens, arrived sick or without a name and put in overcrowded and run-down institutions. Very few were actually adopted or fostered.

Thank goodness, former Prime Minister Gillard commenced the royal commission looking into institutional child abuse. That has and will expose, and will let the nation know, many of these tragic tales from our past. Thankfully, intercountry adoption is a much brighter tale. The rise of intercountry adoption in Australia in the late 1960s coincided with a rapid decline in white infants available for domestic adoption. As the popularity to adopt increased, the Commonwealth government instigated a push to have all the varying state adoption laws made uniform. Following this change in legislation, state governments recorded the highest ever rates of adoption, reaching a peak of almost 9,798 infants and children in the year 1971-72. During this time, Australia also began embracing multiculturalism at a policy level. The final vestiges of the white Australia policy were removed in 1973 by former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Australia also saw medical innovations such as the contraceptive pill and introduced welfare reforms such as income support for single mothers. These all combined gradually to change attitudes towards single motherhood. Perhaps there was also a changing attitude by Catholics to the idea of having children.

On that note I would like to give a big shout-out to my eldest nephew, Andrew Garbe, who was adopted out in the 1970s by my sister. I only met my nephew at my sister Debbie's 50th birthday party, but obviously now he plays a big part in my family, even though he seems to live a fairly crazy life sometimes up in the Northern Territory. That experience led Attorney-General Roxon to put me on the committee regarding the national apology for forced adoption. The apology was delivered by Prime Minister Gillard, sadly on the day of the 'faux coup' and was lost amidst all the media coverage, but surely it was one of the great days in this parliament. I will quote some of the words of Prime Minister Gillard on that day, 21 March 2013. She said:

Today, this Parliament, on behalf of the Australian people, takes responsibility and apologises for the policies and practices that forced the separation of mothers from their babies, which created a lifelong legacy of pain and suffering.

We acknowledge the profound effects of these policies and practices on fathers.

And we recognise the hurt these actions caused to brothers and sisters, grandparents, partners and extended family members.

It was a great day in the Australian parliament that should be acknowledged.

Coming back to the legislation, as you can imagine, these changes contributed to the subsequent decline in the number of Australian children available for adoption. Intercountry adoption emerged in Australia as an institutional practice in the 1970s and, since that time, has been the focus of controversy, with diverse viewpoints. In 1975 the Commonwealth government established an interdepartmental committee to investigate intercountry adoption in Australia. Joint Commonwealth and state delegations visited eight South-East Asian countries to investigate possible new partner countries with which Australia could establish intercountry adoption programs. Throughout the 1980s the number of intercountry adoptions continued to grow—to 420 adoptions in 1990—before dropping to a constant figure of around 250 throughout the 1990s.

In 1998 Australia ratified the Hague convention on the protection of children and cooperation in respect of intercountry adoption. The Hague convention is implemented in Australia largely by the Family Law Act and associated regulation. The Hague convention aims to ensure that intercountry adoption only occurs when it is in the best interests of the child. It aims to protect children and their family against the risks of illegal, irregular or ill-prepared adoptions abroad. The convention also focuses on the need for countries to work to prevent the abduction, sale or trafficking of children. The objects of the Hague Convention are to establish safeguards that will ensure intercountry adoptions take place in the best interests of the child and with respect to his or her fundamental rights. It establishes a cooperative system among contracting states so that safeguards are respected and the abduction, sale and trafficking of children is prevented and ensures the contracting states recognise adoptions made in accordance with the convention.

The Hague convention of 25 October 1980 on the civil aspects of international child abduction is a multilateral treaty that seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of abduction and retention across international boundaries by providing a procedure to bring about their prompt return. The convention was drafted to ensure the prompt return of children who have been abducted from their country of habitual residence or wrongfully retained in a contracting state not their country of habitual residence. The primary intention of the convention is to preserve whatever status quo child custody arrangement existed immediately before an alleged wrongful removal or retention, thereby deterring a parent from crossing international boundaries in search of a more sympathetic court. The convention only applies to children under the age of 16.

As of January 2014, 94 states are parties to the convention—sadly, over 100 countries are not party to it. In 2013 the treaty entered into force for South Korea and Kazakhstan, significantly for Australia. On 1 April 2014 the convention became effective for Japan and on 1 July 2014 it became effective for Iraq. Australia has intercountry adoption programs with 12 Hague convention countries and has bilateral arrangements with two non-convention countries—Taiwan and South Korea. Taiwan is significant because my electorate has a very significant Taiwanese presence. In recent years, there has been a significant shift of focus in international studies of adoption that look beyond its personal implications for individuals and families and seek to examine the broader social, cultural and political implications of adoption practices.

As a response to increased risk to children, in March 1994 Labor introduced sponsorship limitations in migration regulations that prevent a sponsorship from being approved if one of the proposed applicants is under 18 years of age and the minister is satisfied that the sponsor's spouse or de facto partner has a conviction or outstanding charge for a registrable offence. These changes require Australian national police checks and/or foreign police certificates as part of the process of assessing the application, hopefully weeding out those who are not appropriate.

In Australia there were 129 intercountry adoptions finalised in 2012-13. This figure represents 38 per cent of all adoptions over this period. Intercountry adoptions have gone down by 13 per cent since 2011-12. A new report has identified significant barriers facing Australian families wanting to adopt from overseas. Inconsistent rules, costs and the lengthy wait to adopt deter many people from even starting the adoption process. The amendments to the Australian Citizenship Bill will streamline the ability of Australians to seek adoptions from non-convention countries that meet the standards of the Hague convention and they will also enable the adopting parents to obtain Australian citizenship for the child at his or her country of origin. The bilateral arrangements regulations were amended in March this year. This will enable children adopted through bilateral arrangements with Taiwan and South Korea, and previously with Ethiopia, to obtain automatic recognition under Commonwealth, state and Territory laws, thus removing the need for families adopting children from non-convention countries to go through the process of applying for an additional final adoption order from an Australian court. Taiwan is now the largest country involved with Australia's intercountry adoption program. As I mentioned, I have a significant Taiwanese population in my electorate, so anything that can further that process is to be commended.

I urge the government, in their changes, to ensure adequate funding is provided for post adoption support programs as recommended by the Senate committee. The government should be extremely attentive to ensure the amendments do not lead to coercive practices and breaches in international and national laws. The Attorney-General's Department must ensure that criminal organisations cannot exploit loopholes by applying the regulations and safeguards required regardless of whether the child's country of origin is a signatory to the Hague convention.

Recent events in Thailand have emphasised our international obligation to protect the best interests of the child and to pay particular attention to the potential exploitation of families in home countries that may be laden with false information, mistruths and overpromises in the search for a better life for their children. We saw the horrible situation of Gammy. I was actually in Thailand talking to departmental staff before that story broke, and it broke my heart to hear of the situation for Gammy. Intercountry adoption should always be about finding families for children, not children for families. I say that carefully because I know the heavy heart that can come for families desperately seeking a child who are not able to find one through the normal processes.

Popular Australians have taken up the campaign to eliminate bureaucratic obstacles to adoption. Actors Deborra-Lee Furness and Hugh Jackman are the parents of two intercountry adopted children. I commend them for their efforts. More people in the community are becoming aware of the difficulties people face when adopting children from overseas who are abandoned and orphaned. Hugh Jackman starred in a great movie, Paperback Hero, which came out in 1999. It was filmed at St George and Nindigully.

Mr McCormack interjecting—

He might look at The 12th Fish as a sequel to be filmed out at Nindigully!

I would love to see him and Claudia Karvan go back out to Nindigully and St George. I am sure they would be most welcome. I know that my sister, who worked at the Nindigully Pub when he was out there, is still talking about the experience of serving Hugh Jackman. So I commend both Deborra-Lee Furness and Hugh Jackman for their continued efforts to see the process for adoption in Australia improved and their drive to improve conversations with countries like Vietnam, Kenya, Bulgaria, Latvia, Poland, the United States and Cambodia over the future of intercountry adoption.

Obviously the desire to have a child and give a child an opportunity is an incredible urge. I know it can be a difficult journey, especially nowadays with Australians having children later. With women making decisions about having children much later and with one in six not being able to have a child even though they so desire, intercountry adoption and adoption in general will become a much more significant issue. I wish them all the best. The opposition will support the government and stand together with the government on this. With proper safeguards in place, I will be supporting the bill before the House.

Debate adjourned.