Page 3077 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 16 September 2015
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It is not possible to supply you with an average timeframe for an adoption process to be finalised, as the Directorate does not keep records of this data.
I find this quite concerning, because if the directorate does not keep records of the average time frame for an adoption order to be finalised how will the government ever know whether the new strategy is making it quicker or better or more efficient? Surely when you have a strategy that aims to make something better you need to have something to compare it against; otherwise the whole strategy is a bit pointless. So it is very concerning that the Chief Minister has said that this kind of information is not collected.
How will the government ever know whether the out of home strategy, a step up for our kids, is meeting its objective of “easier, quicker opportunities to secure permanency including adoption” if no data is kept on the length of time it takes for an adoption process to be finalised? The Chief Minister went on to say in that letter to a constituent:
Processes can make the journey from becoming a carer, to becoming an adoptive parent, a lengthy one for reasons not necessarily associated with timeframes for obtaining the adoption order itself.
Mr Assistant Speaker, I put it to you that part of that lengthy process is the government’s criminal blitz that is causing a backlog of civil cases including adoption applications. One constituent asked the office of the Minister for Children and Young People, Mr Gentleman, to provide information about the number of families in the ACT who are currently waiting for an adoption to be finalised and the average waiting time for an adoption to be finalised. I have been told that neither Minister Gentleman nor the Community Services Directorate has provided this information to that constituent.
We often hear the government say how open it is, how transparent it is and how it consults with people. This does not appear to be borne out in this particular case. Why is the government not prepared to provide information about the number of families in the ACT who are currently awaiting adoption to be finalised? I know that I can sometimes get that information but when constituents ask for that information what is the purpose, what is the benefit, in not providing that information to constituents? Those people, the very people who are most concerned about this process, are the people who are waiting for adoptions.
The motion today calls on the ACT government to recognise the benefits to children, families and the Canberra community in making adoption processes faster and streamlined. I believe the minister already knows that and acknowledges that. It calls on the ACT government to reduce the backlog of civil cases in the ACT court system and report back to the Assembly in November this year in relation to how it will achieve this. It also calls on the ACT government to prioritise faster processing of adoptions in the ACT court system and report back to the Assembly in November this year on the number of children waiting for an adoption order to be made in the ACT and the average waiting time for an adoption order to be made in the ACT.
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