Page 445 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
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Dear Attorney General
We are writing to convey to you our bitterness at the operation of the new adoption legislation. We believe that you had carriage of its passage in the ACT Legislative Assembly.
We adopted an infant of 2 months in Canberra 21 years ago. Under the then prevailing law, we were not given any information on the identity of the natural parents, but we were told some of their background. It was an unhappy story.
At an early age we told our adopted son that he was adopted, but we did not tell him what we knew of his background. We had no reason to believe that he would ever learn of it and we did not think that he had need to know it.
Recently your new legislation sparked a curiosity in him and, with misguided concern for our sensitivities, he made inquiries without telling us. In the past few days your Department told him his background, including what we had known but had chosen not to reveal. You might be interested to know that the information has devastated him. Thank you.
It seems to us that the new legislation has reduced the adopting parents to nothing more than foster parents. We are not entitled to even the courtesy of being informed in advance that background information is about to be released to our adopted child.
If we had been told, then accepting the inevitable, we would have told our adopted son in our chosen circumstances and in our chosen manner. We have had his upbringing for 21 years and might just have some better appreciation of how to inform him than an anonymous public servant doing the job for us.
We adopted under a law with which we agreed, and it was because the law was as it was that we decided to adopt. Now you have applied retrospective detriment to us by changing the law. We cannot go back in time and remake our decision. If you think that fair, then we obviously have different concepts of fairness.
We are resigned to the fact that we will receive a patronising response prepared for you by another anonymous public servant. But on the one in a million off chance that you might take a moment to read and personally consider this letter, we are taking the trouble to write to you.
Yours sincerely.
Madam Speaker, I think it is worth noting that this letter - - -
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