Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that National Adoption Awareness Week was recently celebrated, a week dedicated to raising awareness around the challenges faced by families and children navigating complex inter country and domestic adoption processes in Australia;

(2) is made aware of the fact that the rate of adoption in Australia is the lowest in the developed world, with only 317 children adopted in 2013-14;

(3) recognises that 15,000 children in Australia have been in out of home care for over two years and over 12 million children are officially registered overseas awaiting adoption;

(4) acknowledges the need for continued adoption reform, especially in the area of local adoption;

(5) notes that:

(a) children who experience abuse and neglect in the home, followed by instability in out of home care, are much more likely to experience poor life outcomes;

(b) in adolescence, out of home carers are unable to maintain the necessary level of care for children with complex needs and they are often placed in residential care; and

(c) on an average day in 2013-14 there were 1,157 children in residential care and on 30 June 2014 there were 2,258 children in residential care; and

(6) calls on the Government to present this issue to the COAG in order to create a national strategy that will dramatically increase the rate of local adoption in Australia.

National Adoption Week has just passed us. With the time allocated to me today, I want to raise awareness of the importance of adoptions here in Australia, and I will do that by highlighting some of the organisations that invest some time in this space. I will speak about some of the statistics nationally and then about how we compare to other countries and, more importantly, how we are tracking with reference to lifting our fair share of weight in this space. In conclusion I will speak about how the federal government can play a role through our state partners and colleagues through the vehicles of CHOGM to enhance adoption, to speed up the process and to make it a more user-friendly environment for those wishing to adopt whilst always maintaining the integrity of the child through love and care, nourishment and making sure that the interest of the child is always kept at the highest. At the conclusion of this speech, I will invite couples who have had difficulty adopting children domestically and internationally and want to share their stories to reach out to my offices either here in Canberra or in Beaudesert, Queensland, so that I am able to maintain a register or just be an ear of someone in the parliament and an advocate for this group.

For National Adoption Week I thank and acknowledge Adopt Change for the work that they have done, in particular Jane Hunt, the CEO. Deborra-lee Furness is the founder of the organisation and has done an amazing job of putting this very important issue on the national stage. It would be remiss not to mention Adoption Jigsaw, an organisation and advocacy group; Australians Caring for Children Inc.; Anglicare; Barnardos Australia adoptions; World Families Australia; the Salvation Army; Relationships Australia; and many dozens of country- specific organisations for families going through intercountry adoption for the work that they do in this space.

I want to also acknowledge the work that has been done in the Senate in this space. There was a motion that was put on the Notice Paper over there and it was moved by none other than Senator Seselja. I want to acknowledge Senator Seselja's work in this space. I have a copy of the motion, and I was suitably impressed by the amount of senators from the other place who supported his motion—nearly all but the crossbenchers supported the motion as well. It is an issue which has support, but it is an issue that we need to move cautiously on to make sure that we ensure the protection of the children at all times.

National Adoption Awareness Week is in response to the challenges faced by families and children navigating complex intercountry and domestic adoption processes in Australia. National Adoption Awareness Week aims to increase insight and understanding through a series of specialist and community-based events exploring the experiences for children and families through local and intercountry adoption. During the week, there has been a concerted effort to promote the reforms of the Australian adoption laws and practices to facilitate a pro-adoption community. I, along with Adopt Change, our Prime Minister, many of my Senate colleagues and, I hope, those on the other side of the House, believe the needs of vulnerable children in Australia and across the globe require the urgent attention of our policymakers to ensure that there is swift yet ethical placement in permanent and loving Australian families.

Adoption in Australia is a social issue fraught with a difficult history and vacillating public attitudes. During the 1920s open adoptions were fostered in legislation through to about the 1960s, when there was a shift—with the emphasise on having a clean break from birth parents and enshrining the principle of secrecy around the adoptive status of children. I just acknowledge the good Senator Zed Seselja, whom I spoke of earlier in my speech, for his contribution to the debate and I welcome you and thank you, Senator, for your heartfelt contribution to this debate. Statistically, this period also saw a distinct drop in adoption numbers for a range of reasons. This is carried through to today, where adoption numbers are at historical lows. In the years 1971 to 1972 there were just under 10,000 adoptions. In 1991 to 1992, these were down to just over 1,000. I commend this motion to the House.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

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

I second the motion. I want to begin by supporting many of the remarks from the member for Wright, and I want to congratulate him on bringing this important issue to the attention of the House. I am pleased to see some of the recent moves on this in the other place and also the Turnbull government's recent decision to add Poland and Latvia to the countries from which Australian families might adopt children. I do hope to see more added as we go.

One of the great perversities of our world is that there are so many children in it who need a loving home and so many families who are looking for a child to complete their family. It is just incredible, really, to think about it—despite all of the thousands of people for whom intercountry adoption could help, in 2014 just 114 intercountry adoptions were made legal in Australia. I think it is probably a shared view across everyone in this House that there is potential to do a lot more good here.

I am really pleased to see the government going about this in a measured way, and the reason that we need to be measured is that we need to be up-front about the risks that are inherit in intercountry adoption as well as the incredible benefits that can come from it. The potential for human trafficking under the shroud of intercountry adoption has to be a part of the conversation, because it is real and there is very good evidence of it. I say that not to upset anyone or to upset any of the groups that are advocates in this area, but simply to say that we have to have a balanced conversation about the challenges that we face as policymakers.

What we know is that when intercountry adoption is done well and fairly, massive human tragedy is avoided. But when it is done poorly, massive human tragedy is created. I do not believe that it is beyond the capacities and the expertise of the people who work in this parliament and around it to solve some of those policy challenges. I believe that if we took a similar approach in trying to protect children in the same way that we try to protect adults we would probably see a little bit more energy, attention and focus, but I am pleased to see some progress being made in this area.

I want to take some time in the discussion today to talk about Australian children, especially those who are in out-of-home care. There are about 43,000 Australian children at the moment who are living away from their parents. We hear a similar story with intercountry adoption. Last year just 203 of those children were permanently adopted into another Australian family. Children, especially vulnerable children, need stability. Foster care, by its very definition, is impermanent. Under today's system, the evidence is really clearly borne out: a quarter of the children who live in foster care today in Australia have lived in 10 or more households during their time in care. That number is heartbreaking and gutting. We have to ask ourselves how we could have let this happen. Again, if the people primarily affected by this problem were adults I think we would see a very different national conversation happening about how we could help more of these vulnerable people go into safe households. I note some recent policy changes that we have seen in some states. Victoria and New South Wales have made some changes to try to better protect children in the foster care system. It is not that this national crisis is being avoided, but the numbers remain as they are: 43,000 children and 200 adoptions. It is simply not enough.

There are many other issues facing this system. We see year on year that the number of children who need the support of the community through foster care is growing and growing. Yet over time we see the number of foster carers, who are not getting the care and protection that they need, getting smaller and smaller. Fourteen per cent of all foster parents left the system in the last year. That is a huge indication to us as policymakers that we are not doing what we need to do to support those families.

I have been a foster parent myself, and it is something that I hope I can do a lot more of in the future. I have come nowhere near living up to my responsibility to the many Australian children who need the care of the community. I note this experience only to have the opportunity to say that, having lived within that system and experienced it, I have seen the system being skewed too much in favour of the parents who are not doing justice to their own children, often at the expense of the care and attention given to those children, who should always be at the heart and soul of that system.

We need to do better. When I say 'we', I do not just mean the people in this parliament who are trying to make sure that we have the right policy settings in place. There is a lot that government can do to help protect Australian children, but governments cannot provide safe and happy homes for kids who need them. Only the community can do that. So we need to think a little more about what we as Australians can do to support those tens of thousands of children who need our help and support.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

… … …

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.

… … …

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

… … …

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.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think we all acknowledge that this issue is a complex issue because it involves families, it involves children and—as this motion states—it quite often involves children who feel unloved and unwanted, and children who are placed in difficult circumstances, many of whom face abuse and neglect. I thought of some of the homes and the families and the people I have met in my electorate in reading this motion and preparing my remarks today.

I remember a grandmother. I knocked on her door in North Bendigo. She had three children, and she was their primary carer. She was one of our unsung heroes: a grandparent carer. She was getting them ready for school—it was a Sunday, so they were finishing off their homework and getting ready. She said that her greatest fear was that her daughter would come back into their lives. As a mother, she said, that was really hard to say. Because of the way in which the system has been established her daughter has had a troubled life and was not really capable of caring for her children. The hardest thing for her as a mother was acknowledging that, and then acknowledging the heartbreak and the instability it causes the children when she comes in and out of their lives. Now the legal system is involved.

What I took away from that interaction was the complexity of the situation, the emotion involved in the situation, the complexity of the legal system, and—more importantly—the question that needed to be asked: what is in the best interests of those children? Any reform in this space needs to focus on the best interests of the children and the rights of the children. Too often our children are being used as pawns when we have relationship break-ups and when we have situations where children are coming in and out of care.

I also agree with the previous speaker, the member for Hotham, who highlighted that with any reform in this space of intercountry adoption we need to have strong rules in place to ensure that children do not become victims of trafficking. We need to ensure that these children's rights are also protected. I personally know children who have been adopted from overseas by local parents—loving parents. These children bring joy and happiness into their lives—to the so many Australians who now have these stories. We need to ensure that all children who come here under these arrangements have these rights. We cannot afford to allow one or two to become victims.

I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge the work that the Victorian Labor government has done in this space of adoption. Only recently they have joined many other states and moved to legislate for same-sex adoption. Western Australia adopted similar rules in 2002, the ACT in 2004, New South Wales in 2010 and Tasmania in 2013. The fact that Victoria has now joined them is a good step forward for my home state. Why the change? Legal certainty for the relationships between parents and children is a necessity. It is so that the courts can consider the children in a family to be siblings regardless of the biological relationship between the children. These changes allow children automatic inheritance from their permanent caring parents. They allow parents to apply for passports for children without seeking the birth family's permission and a court order. They also remove the stigma that still existed for so many same-sex parented families in my state of Victoria. Many people spoke out in Victoria about the need for this to happen. This bill in Victoria will remove the discrimination against children and parents of same-sex families. Many of the stories that they told reminded us of why this reform is so important. The bill that the Victorian government introduced in the lower house, which then successfully passed through the upper house, changed the Adoption Act by substituting the gender-neutral word 'person' to replace the reference to a man and a woman. It was that simple to ensure that gay couples and same-sex families in Victoria had the same rights as single-parent families and heterosexual couples.

I would like to finish with a few words of one of the mothers who talked about how important this is:

Most of the time we're just driving to soccer, or forgetting ballet shoes, or trying to be the best parents we can be … It's hard to believe some people see us differently …

That is why these rules were so important to change.

Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the private motion before the chamber. Adoption in Australia is in desperate need of reform on a nationwide basis. Only a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of participating in National Adoption Awareness Week. I would like to acknowledge in this chamber the hard work done by the founder, Deborra-lee Furness, CEO Jane Hunt and the board of Adopt Change. Their vision, their commitment to creating a better future for children in need and their support for families willing to adopt those children are inspirational. I met numerous families with wonderful stories to tell about adoption. I came away encouraged by the possibilities for adoption in this country.

Australia is a rich and prosperous nation. We enjoy a unique lifestyle and stable government. Political, social and economic opportunity abounds for all. As a nation, we have a generous migration program where we, the body politic, welcome people freely into our social, political and economic order, and they adopt Australia as their country. We practise adoption of sorts at a macro level. So it is troubling to read that Australia has one of the lowest adoption rates in the developed world. In fact, last year Australia had its lowest number of adoptions in history, with only 203 local adoptions and 114 intercountry adoptions. How do we explain this? What is at play here? It is true that demographic changes, changes in the levels of support for at-risk and vulnerable families and changes in societal attitudes toward single women that now ensure that single mothers can care for their children are perhaps behind the drop in numbers of adoptions.

In August 2015, Adopt Change commissioned independent research to better understand Australian attitudes to adoptions. Their findings are instructive. Let me highlight a few: 89 per cent of Australians view adoption in an overwhelmingly positive light and believe that adoption gives a child a better chance in life. Australian culture is receptive to adoption. It is positive towards adoption. My own experience with adoption is illustrative.

When my wife and I applied for the adoption process through the Department for Child Protection in Western Australia just over two years ago, we found that family, friends, work colleagues—even strangers—were very supportive of our plans to adopt. Not a single person counselled us against it. The Western Australian Department for Child Protection were very helpful, but our experience with department culture, especially during the introductory seminars, was not overly encouraging. We got a lot of negative stories about the cost and the time and all the caveats that make adoption difficult. In fact 17 per cent of the people involved in the research by Adopt Change indicated that they had actively looked into the adoption process or given serious thought to adoption. However, of that 17 per cent, 87 per cent did not proceed with adoption.

There is a large disconnect between Australians attitudes in the culture and those that you encounter in the bureaucracy that administer adoption. The adoption process is framed in negative terms. The testimonies that we received during the initial seminars were largely negative. For us, it felt like only the strong survive. I do not deny the legitimacy of some of the stories that came out about adoption but certainly we should be encouraging people to adopt.

So I suggest that we need a cultural shift in the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy should be looking to prepare, equip and encourage people who are keen to adopt. As it is, it is already a very emotional time, when you feel vulnerable and uncertain about the future. I might add that there were two people in WADCP who I would like to publicly acknowledge, Linda Joye and Mandy Birch, who do a great job and who supported us through our process.

The hard reality is that there are 15,000 children in Australia who have been in and out of care homes for two years or more. They are not living with family. Almost half of those children who can be adopted move six or more times in their life in foster care. As we know, impermanence harms them; relationally and developmentally, they end up compromised as adults. This is not good at all. We need to do more to make adoption easier so that we look after the children who are in desperate need. There are kids desperate for security and stability. There are parents committed to helping. And we need to make it easier. At the moment there is a five-year wait time in Australia; in the US it is 18 months on average.

So I support this motion and I call on the federal government to push this issue at the Council of Australian Governments. We desperately need reform on a nationwide basis. I back this private motion.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this private member's motion moved by the member for Wright. I have listened to the various arguments raised by preceding speakers in this debate today. From a personal point of view, my mother was adopted as a child following the war in Singapore by a couple, Titus and Marjorie Smith, who also adopted another younger girl. They raised the two girls in a caring environment and ensured they had a good education and a fairly normal upbringing, which was the best in the circumstances.

Adopt Change organisation has been a strong advocate on the issue of increasing the adoption rate in Australia. I note the arguments raised in support; that there are over 44,000 children living in out-of-home care in Australia and there are 15,000 children in Australia who have been in out-of-home care for over two years and are not living with relatives or kin. On average, a child experiences six placements in foster care, which can be very disruptive to their development. Last year in Australia we had the lowest number of adoptions in history, with just 203 Australian and 114 intercountry adoptions.

Family breakdown and tragic circumstances can often leave children without necessary parental care. Very often, the children are traumatised and in need of care and stability in their lives. It is preferable to have children placed in more permanent secure living arrangements best replicating family life, which adoption can provide.

Adoption will reduce the need for government intervention and case management on a regular basis. There are many couples who are unable to have children and are very much genuinely wanting to adopt and care for children as an alternative to fertility treatments and surrogacy. I personally know of a number of very good foster carers in my electorate who are very dedicated and do a wonderful job caring for the children in their care, like their very own. Very often, they find it extremely difficult and heartbreaking to say goodbye when the children have to be moved on.

Institutionalised care can be very impersonal and disruptive to a child's development in terms of developing a sense of belonging, settling into a familiar routine, developing self-confidence and self-esteem. There must be high standards of screening with appropriate background checks to ensure that the adopted children are placed into loving families, where they will be cared for appropriately and not exploited or abused. I would only advocate adoption to traditionally married couples, as adopted children should have the right to a father and mother figure in their lives.

I fully support this motion calling for the federal government to present this issue to the Council of Australian Governments in order to create a national strategy that will facilitate local adoption in Australia. The system needs reform, and I would strongly advocate for the rate of adoptions within Australia to increase. I commend the motion moved by the member for Wright to the House.

Debate adjourned.