Page 3229 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 November 1992
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background of the proposed adoptive parents, the religious upbringing of the child, or whether a single person might adopt the child; removal of the age criterion from legislation to administrative guidelines in order to maintain the flexibility to respond to changes in Australian societal norms for the ages of parents - I note that that was a significant point; we had overwhelming community views in relation to the community consultation process that that statutory age criterion should be removed, and so it has been; requirement for consent to adoption from any parent, including the birth father of ex-nuptial children where the father's paternity can be established through the Birth (Equality of Status) Act - for example, where the father's name is registered on the child's birth certificate; and restriction of the adoption of children from overseas to those whose adoptions were arranged by an approved agency in the child's country of origin, according to approved arrangements and within that country's laws - in particular, with a focus there on the forthcoming Hague Convention on International Adoptions.
Of all these provisions, the one evoking the most attention has been the access to identifying information provisions. This attention has coincided with widespread media coverage in 1991 on the introduction of similar legislation in New South Wales and in Queensland. Central to the issues concerning access to identifying information has been the need to balance the rights of the individual to privacy against the rights of other individuals to access personal information held by government.
Madam Speaker, to understand these issues it is important to place them within their historical context. The existing ACT adoption legislation was enacted in 1965 when attitudes to ex-nuptial births and infertility were vastly different from community attitudes today. The legislation gave absolute privacy protection to the parties of adoption - indeed, absolute secrecy provisions. This protection was based on the belief that the interests of the child and his or her adoptive and birth parents were best served by cutting off all reciprocal contact and knowledge at the time of adoption. Since that time, however, a large body of research has revealed that the strengths of adoption are based on openness and honesty in family relationships rather than in the preservation of secrecy. This recognition, together with governments' and society's recognition of people's rights to personal information, led to the reform of adoption legislation in the United Kingdom in 1975 and in most other Australian jurisdictions during the 1980s.
A predominant theme throughout this legislation has been to protect the rights to privacy of those who seek it, but at the same time break down those barriers which have previously restricted the rights of those seeking access to information. At the moment adoption records in the ACT are a closed book, with release of information being authorised only in very limited and exceptional circumstances or when the information released is judged to be non-identifying. This Bill will enable non-identifying information to be made available to the adopted person and his or her adoptive parents, birth families and descendants. In addition, the legislation recognises the right to identifying information, and provides an effective means of protecting the privacy of parties to the adoption, if they so wish, in the form of a veto on contact.
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