Adoption in Australia deals with the adoption process in the various parts of Australia, whereby a person assumes or acquires the permanent, legal status of parenthood in relation to a child under the age of 18 in place of the child's birth or biological parents. Australia classifies adoptions as local adoptions (placement within the country), and intercountry adoptions (adoption of children born overseas). Known child adoptions (adoption by relatives, stepparents or carers) are a form of local adoptions.
Adoptions in Australia are handled by state and territorial government agencies or approved adoption agencies. It is unlawful to arrange a private adoption,[1] though foreign adoptions may be recognised. Government adoption agencies include Adoption Services in Queensland,[1] Families SA in South Australia[2] and the Department of Human Services in Victoria.[3]
When an adoption is completed, the birth parents (also referred to as natural parents) no longer have any legal rights over the child. The adopted child becomes a full member of the adopting family, taking their surname and assuming the same rights and privileges as a birth child, including the right of inheritance. A new birth certificate is issued, in the case of local adoptions. The adopted child also has the same position as a birth child in relation to the extended family of the adopting parents, for example with laws prohibiting incestuous sexual relationships or prohibiting marriages.[4]
Legal framework
Adoptions in Australia are regulated by legislation and regulations of each State and Territory, which govern all adoptions arranged in that State and Territory. In April 2018, the Northern Territory was the last jurisdiction within Australia that passed a bill to allow both same-sex couples and unmarried different-sex couples to legally adopt children.[5][6][7]
The current State and Territory Adoption Acts are:
Australia is a party to the Hague Adoption Convention which came into force in Australia on 1 December 1998, and has been implemented by amendments to the Family Law Act 1975 and the passing of the Family Law (Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption) Regulations 1998.[8] The Australian Citizenship Act 2007 simplified the process of obtaining Australian citizenship for children who were adopted overseas in accordance with the Hague Adoption Convention.[9] Intercountry adoptions conform with the principles of the convention.
State and territory governments are in charge of processing inter-country adoptions, but eligibility requirements widely differ in relation to partner relationship status, age, citizenship and health, and there are also federal responsibilities.[10] Each foreign country would also have its own eligibility criteria for the adoption of its children.
Known child adoptions
Family law in Australia with regards to children is based on what is considered to be in the best interest of the child and families. Family laws contain a strong preference for retaining ties to biological parents, and a general presumption against making a known adoption order because an adoption order severs the legal relationship between the child and one of the child's birth parents.[citation needed] Due to the serious consequences of an adoption order, all stepparent adoption laws contain a strong preference for dealing with new parenting arrangements through a parenting order rather than an adoption order. Stepparents and other carers may apply to the Family Court of Australia for a parenting order, as 'other people significant to the care, welfare and development' of the child. It provides an important "status quo" if the birth mother were to die, so, for example, other family members could not come and take the child.
Adoption for same-sex couples is currently legally available in all of Australia since April 2018.[11]
Western Australia became the first Australian state to allow same-sex adoptions when its Labor government passed the Acts Amendment (Lesbian and Gay Law Reform) Act, 2002 which amended the Adoption Act, 1994 (WA). This allowed same-sex couples to adopt in accordance with criteria that assesses the suitability of couples and individuals to be parents, regardless of sexual orientation. The Northern Territory in April 2018 was the last jurisdiction of Australia to legally allow same sex couples and unmarried heterosexual couples to adopt children.[11]
Australia's first legal gay adoption, by two men, occurred in Western Australia in June 2007.[12][13][14][15] Subsequently, on 2 August 2007, the federal government under Prime MinisterJohn Howard announced it would legislate to stop same-sex couples adopting a child from overseas, and would further not recognise adopted children of same-sex couples. The federal Coalition's proposed Family Law (Same Sex Adoption) Bill would amend the 1975 Family Law Act and override state and territory laws that currently cover international adoptions. The bill was due to be introduced in the spring 2007 session of parliament, but was taken off the agenda following the Coalition's defeat at the 2007 federal election.[16][17]
Both New South Wales since 2010 and Victoria since 2016, legal adoption services within these states have religious exemptions. That means religious organizations can technically still do not have to legally include single people, unmarried heterosexual couples or any same-sex couples married or unmarried within their religious organization adoption services.
Single parent adoptions
Since April 2018, most Australian jurisdictions legally allow single people to adopt children, except in Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory. However, individuals seeking to adopt are considered less of a priority than couples and lengthy waiting lists for adoption make it virtually impossible. Individuals may usually only adopt a child with special needs or in cases of exceptional circumstances (e.g. a court order).[11]
Intercountry adoption in Australia first began in 1975 towards the end of the Vietnam War when 292 Vietnamese orphans were brought to Australia in an American organised evacuation from Vietnam of Asian-American orphans, called 'Operation Babylift'.[18] An average of 330 intercountry adoptions were finalised each year for the ten years between 1998 and 2008.[18] The rate of children being adopted from China has increased faster than any other country from 0.3% in 1999/2000 to 30.9% in 2006/07. In 2007/2008, there were only 270 children adopted from other countries by Australian parents, the majority of the children coming from, in descending order, China (63 children, 23.3%), South Korea (47 children, 17.4%), Philippines (41 children, 15.2%) and Ethiopia (35 children, 13.0%).[18] By 2011/12, the number of intercountry adoptions had dropped to 149,[10] and 129 in 2012/13.[19]
The Australian Government Attorney-General's Department has primary responsibility for developing and maintaining intercountry adoption arrangements with other countries. This responsibility is shared with the State and Territory authorities, which assess applications, facilitate adoptions, provide advice and assistance, and provide post-placement support and supervision.[20] Applicants must meet the eligibility requirements set by the Australian State or Territory in which the application is being lodged, as well as the eligibility criteria of the overseas country of the adoptive child. Intercountry adoption can be a lengthy process, usually taking at least two years in Australia, requiring multiple assessments of the continued suitability of prospective parents.[21]
Intercountry adoption practices are in accordance with the principles of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which came into force in Australia on 1 December 1998. As at August 2009, Australia had open adoption programs with Bolivia, Chile, China, Colombia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Hong Kong, India, Lithuania, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Thailand. Most of the countries with which Australia has direct adoption programs are also parties to the Hague Adoption Convention, the exceptions being Hong Kong, Ethiopia and Taiwan. Countries with which adoption programs have closed include Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico and Romania.[22] In 2012, Australia closed the adoption program with Ethiopia. It did so at a time when no Ethiopian children would be disadvantaged as no Ethiopian children were available for adoption by Australian parents.
Statistics
There has been a substantial decline in the number of adoptions in Australia since the early 1970s.[23] In 1971/72 there were 9,798 adoptions, which declined to 668 in 1995/96.[24]
A report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics attributes this decline to the introduction of welfare for single mothers, increased legal access to termination of pregnancy, family planning services, access to child care and improved participation of women in the workforce.[24]Forced adoption of tens of thousands of Aboriginals and the children of single mothers continued until the early 1980s.
As the table below demonstrates, Australia has a significantly lower rate of adoption than the United States and the United Kingdom:
The number of adoptions is reported to be constant since 1987.
Low rates of local adoptions are attributed to the low number of children who need placement. Low rates of international adoptions are attributed to long wait times (from two to as much as eight years) and high cost (up to $40,000). The following table shows the most recent adoption figures, from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare:[31]
2005/06
2006/07
2007/08
2008/09
Intercountry adoptions
421
405
270
269
Local adoptions
60
59
70
68
'Known-child' adoptions
95
104
100
104
Totals
576
568
440
441
In 2012/13, there was a total of 339 children adopted nationally, arranged through the eight administrations.
The earliest introduction of child removal to legislation is recorded in the Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act 1869. The Central Board for the Protection of Aborigines had been advocating such powers since 1860, and the passage of the Act gave the colony of Victoria a wide suite of powers over Aboriginal and 'half-caste' persons, including the forcible removal of children, especially 'at risk' girls.[38] By 1950, similar policies and legislation had been adopted by other states and territories.[39] According to the Bringing Them Home inquiry into the forced separation of indigenous children from their families, less than 17% of the children were adopted. The majority of these adoptions occurred after 1950 when authorities began promoting the fostering and adoption of Aboriginal children by white parents.
Traditional Torres Strait Islander adoptions
A traditional cultural practice by Torres Strait Islander peoples, known as kupai omasker, allows adoption of a child by a relative or community member for a range of reasons. The reasons differ depending on which of the many Torres Islander cultures the person belongs to, with one example being "where a family requires an heir to carry on the important role of looking after land or being the caretaker of land". Other reasons might relate to "the care and responsibility of relationships between generations".[40]
There had been a problem in Queensland law, where such adoptions are not legally recognised by the state's Succession Act 1981,[41] with one issue being that adopted children are not able to take on the surname of their adoptive parents.[40] On 17 July 2020 the Queensland Government introduced a bill in parliament to legally recognise the practice.[42] The bill was passed as the Meriba Omasker Kaziw Kazipa Act 2020 ("For Our Children's Children") on 8 September 2020.[43]
Changing attitudes
While the first adoption legislation in Australia in the 1920s[44] fostered relatively "open" adoptions, a second wave of legislation passed in the 1960s had emphasised the importance of a "clean break" from birth parents and enshrined the principle of secrecy around the adoptive status of children, who were to be raised by their adoptive parents "as if born to them". This principle was meant to provide adoptive parents with heirs without fear of stigma or interference from the biological parent/s, but also operated to allow the unmarried mother, her child, and her family, to be shielded from the shame of an illegitimate birth.[45]
The number of adoptions has decreased since the 1970s. This is largely due to the increase in social acceptance of single parent families and de facto relationships. Government benefits for single parents and improved access to contraception and abortion are also important reasons for this trend.[3]
Subsequent revelations decades later of the history of the treatment of "removed" children, whether indigenous, white Australian, or the British children who travelled to Australia in imperial forced migration schemes well into the twentieth-century, had a profound impact on public perceptions of adoption. The notion of "coming home", mobilised with great effect by indigenous Australians to account for their experiences of separation from family into institutions or adoption, came to stand for the adoptive experience generally. This concept stigmatised adoptions in general as entailing loss, removal from roots, and pain while at the same time idealised the birth family, minimising if not shutting out the role and experiences of the adoptive family.[45]
Recognition of the damaging effects of previous adoption policies had burgeoned in the 1970s and 1980s. Beginning in the mid-1970s, all Australian states and territories reviewed adoption legislation and embarked on initially cautious reversals of previous (secretive) practices throughout the 1980s. National Adoption Conferences, convened in Australia in 1976, 1978 and 1982, brought together people affected by adoption with professionals and researchers. These conferences served as important for activism and agitation on adoption law reform. Workers in the field began to tend towards the view that children should be with their biological parents where possible.[45] Sociologist Rosemary Pringle suggested as late as 2002 that adoption in Australia had lost virtually all social policy credibility.
Then, in 2005 and again in 2007, in two significant reports from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Human Services, adoption appeared to reemerge on the political agenda as viable social policy. The 2005 report endorsed not only intercountry adoption, but suggested that adoption, rather than foster care and other out-of-home-care, might also be in the best interests of many Australian-born children. It also reversed the Australian tendency towards non-interventionism in family matters. The Standing Committee stated that it had concluded it was "unequivocally in support of intercountry adoptions as a legitimate way to give a loving family environment to children from overseas who may have been abandoned or given up for adoption". This is contrasted with the negative attitudes to adoption found within the state and territory welfare departments responsible for processing adoption applications at the time. These attitudes ranged "from indifference to hostility".[45] In December 2013, NSW family and community services minister Pru Goward said adoption can improve lives, saying "How can we hope to break the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage if we do not begin by giving each of these children a safe and loving home for life?"[10]
The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian federal and state government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals of those referred to as "half-caste" children were conducted in the period between approximately 1905 and 1967, although in some places mixed-race children were still being taken into the 1970s.
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting of another, usually a child, from that person's biological or legal parent or parents. Legal adoptions permanently transfer all rights and responsibilities, along with filiation, from the biological parents to the adoptive parents.
Same-sex adoption is the adoption of children by same-sex couples. It may take the form of a joint adoption by the couple, or of the adoption by one partner of the other's biological child.
International adoption is a type of adoption in which an individual or couple residing in one country becomes the legal and permanent parent(s) of a child who is a national of another country. In general, prospective adoptive parents must meet the legal adoption requirements of their country of residence and those of the country whose nationality the child holds.
In the United States, adoption is the process of creating a legal parent-child relationship between a child and a parent who was not automatically recognized as the child's parent at birth.
Interracial adoption refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group.
David Mark Smolin is a professor of law at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama where he is the Harwell G. Davis Chair in Constitutional Law, director for The Center for Children, Law, and Ethics, former director of the Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics, and faculty advisor for the Law, Science and Technology Society.
The China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA) was established on June 24, 1996 by China's Ministry of Civil Affairs. The CCAA is responsible for the welfare of children in the care of Child Welfare Institutes (orphanages), domestic adoption, and international adoption.
Tasmania's Relationships Act 2003 provided for registration and recognition of a type of registered partnership in two distinct categories: Significant Relationships and Caring Relationships. The same Act also amended 73 pieces of legislation to provide registered partners with nearly all of the rights offered to married couples within the state. Furthermore, since July 2009, these relationships are recognised at federal level, providing couples with almost all of the federal rights and benefits of marriage. The legislation came into effect on 1 January 2004. In September 2010, the Parliament of Tasmania approved legislation to recognize same-sex unions performed outside Tasmania as significant relationships.
Child laundering is a tactic used in illegal or fraudulent international adoptions. It may involve child trafficking and child acquisition through payment, deceit or force. The children may then be held in sham orphanages while formal adoption processes are used to send them to adoptive parents in another country.
The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Australian state of South Australia are advanced and well-established. South Australia has had a chequered history with respect to the rights of LGBT people. Initially, the state was a national pioneer of LGBT rights in Australia, being the first in the country to decriminalise homosexuality and to introduce a non-discriminatory age of consent for all sexual activity. Subsequently, the state fell behind other Australian jurisdictions in areas including relationship recognition and parenting, with the most recent law reforms regarding the recognition of same-sex relationships, LGBT adoption and strengthened anti-discrimination laws passed in 2016 and went into effect in 2017.
Australia is one of the most LGBT-friendly countries in the world. In a 2013 Pew Research poll, 79% of Australians agreed that homosexuality should be accepted by society, making it the fifth most supportive country in the survey behind Spain (88%), Germany (87%), and Canada and the Czech Republic. With a long history of LGBT rights activism and an annual three-week-long Mardi Gras festival, Sydney is considered one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world.
This article details the history of the LGBT rights movement in Australia, from the colonial era to the present day.
Law in Australia with regard to children is often based on what is considered to be in the best interest of the child. The traditional and often used assumption is that children need both a mother and a father, which plays an important role in divorce and custodial proceedings, and has carried over into adoption and fertility procedures. As of April 2018 all Australian states and territories allow adoption by same-sex couples.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to adoption:
Until 2017, laws related to LGBTQ+ couples adopting children varied by state. Some states granted full adoption rights to same-sex couples, while others banned same-sex adoption or only allowed one partner in a same-sex relationship to adopt the biological child of the other. Despite these rulings, same-sex couples and members of the LGBTQ+ community still face discrimination when attempting to foster children.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Australia's Northern Territory enjoy the same legal rights as non-LGBT residents. The liberalisation of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Australia's Northern Territory has been a gradual process. Homosexual activity was legalised in 1983, with an equal age of consent since 2003. Same-sex couples are recognised as de facto relationships. There was no local civil union or domestic partnership registration scheme before the introduction of nationwide same-sex marriage in December 2017, following the passage of the Marriage Amendment Act 2017 by the Australian Parliament. The 2017 Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, designed to gauge public support for same-sex marriage in Australia, returned a 60.6% "Yes" response in the territory. LGBT people are protected from discrimination by both territory and federal law, though the territory's hate crime law does not cover sexual orientation or gender identity. The territory was the last jurisdiction in Australia to legally allow same-sex couples to adopt children.
The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) is one of Australia's leading jurisdictions with respect to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) people. The ACT has made a number of reforms to territory law designed to prevent discrimination of LGBT people; it was the only state or territory jurisdiction in Australia to pass a law for same-sex marriage, which was later overturned by the High Court of Australia. The Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and Queensland are the only jurisdictions within Australia to legally ban conversion therapy on children. The ACT's laws also apply to the smaller Jervis Bay Territory.
Shannon Maree Fentiman is an Australian politician. She has been the Labor member for Waterford in the Queensland Legislative Assembly since 2015 and has served as the Minister for Health and Ambulance Services since 2023.
Surrogacy is legal in New Zealand if it is performed altruistically, where the surrogate donates her services selflessly, without any compensation beyond the coverage of expenses. Commercial surrogacy, where the surrogate is paid in addition to the coverage of expenses, is not legal. There is a lack of specific legislation and regulations dealing with surrogacy, though the recent increase in surrogacy cases has led to a number of amendments. New Zealand is party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and ratified it in April 1993. The primary principle of this convention is that the best interests of the child are paramount, which must then encompass all surrogacy agreements and regulations. The lack of clear surrogacy legislation in New Zealand has led to many couples engaging in reproductive tourism in order to ensure the surrogacy is successful. This has the potential to significantly impact the human rights of all of the parties involved.
↑ In its submission to the Bringing Them Home report, the Victorian government stated that "despite the apparent recognition in government reports that the interests of Indigenous children were best served by keeping them in their own communities, the number of Aboriginal children forcibly removed continued to increase, rising from 220 in 1973 to 350 in 1976" (Bringing Them Home: "Victoria"Archived 10 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine ).
↑ M.F. Christie, Aboriginal People in Colonial Victoria, 1835–86, pp. 175–176.
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