Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 12 Hansard (20 November) . . Page.. 4378 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

people as potential adoptive parents. When it comes to adoption, the act clearly states that the paramount consideration in every case is the welfare and interests of the child concerned. This will not change.

The Adoption Act also contains a number of other safeguards that will not be altered, for example:

the adoptive parents of the child must be resident in the ACT;

nobody may apply to be placed on the register of persons seeking to adopt a child unless they are persons of good repute and are fit and proper persons to fulfil the responsibilities of parents of a child (including protecting a child's physical and emotional well-being); and

they must also be suitable persons to adopt the particular child having regard to their ages, education and attitudes to adoption and physical, mental and emotional health particularly insofar as it impacts on capacity to nurture the child; and the welfare and interests of the child will be promoted by the making of the order.

Section 19 of the act sets out the criteria that the Supreme Court must use in making an adoption order, including:

whether any required consents have been given;

the wishes of the child where the child is of an age and sufficient understanding to express a wish; and

whether the welfare and interests of the child will be promoted by the making of the order.

The amendments to the Adoption Act in the Parentage Bill do not alter any of these provisions. The government's view is simply that there is no sustainable reason to automatically exclude a particular group of people, the non-heterosexual group, from being considered against these criteria as potential adoptive parents.

The changes to adoption law, similar to the changes to parentage presumptions, will promote the interests of children who are being brought up by same-sex partners but who, under current law, are prevented from having a legal relationship to the significant adults in their lives. Like most other children, they will be able to have two parents responsible for their care. These changes will mean that, in the unfortunate event for instance of the death of one parent, the children will have another legal parent with legal responsibility for their care.

The bill defines what is meant by the term "parent". A parent of a child is the child's mother, the child's father or another person who is a parent because of the operation of the presumption about parentage. This creates a parent and child relationship between a child and a person who is neither the child's father nor the child's mother. It is designed to accommodate families where the mother of the child is in a domestic partnership with a person who is not a man, in other words, a woman. I regret the expression. However, children can only have two parents at any one time, so the parentage presumptions are not able to operate to give a child three or four parents at once.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .