Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senators Lindgren, Abetz, Edwards, Bernardi, McKenzie, Bushby, Heffernan, Johnston, Reynolds, Fawcett, Macdonald, Canavan, Williams, Back, Day, Lambie , Lazarus, Leyonhjelm , Madigan, Xenophon, Wang and Bullock move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) the week, 8 November to 14 November 2015, is National Adoption Awareness Week,

(ii) the number of children adopted in Australia is at an all time low, declining 76 per cent over 25 years,

(iii) the number of children in the out of home care system continues to increase,

(iv) in 2013-14 there were over 50 000 children in out of home care arrangements, including kinship care, foster care and guardianship,

(v) there are 15 000 children in Australia who have been in out of home care for over 2 years and are not living with relatives or kin,

(vi) only 203 Australian children were adopted in this country in 2014, and

(vii) long term out of home care arrangements lack stability with an average child experiencing 6 different placements during their time in out of home care; and

(b) calls on the Federal Government to use its leadership of the Council of Australian Governments to work with the states and territories on a national strategy to significantly increase the number of local adoptions in Australia.

Question agreed to.