Page 1943 - Week 07 - Thursday, 13 August 2020
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In the ACT relatively few domestic adoptions take place each year but, as others have mentioned, for the children and families involved it is a life-changing experience. This is because adoption establishes a new identity for the child who is being adopted and permanently severs legal ties with their birth family.
The bill follows many months of consultation with people and organisations who generously shared their perspectives and lived experience. Throughout this work we were reminded of the complex nature of adoption, which elicits strong emotional responses from the community.
As I have acknowledged previously, this bill does not do everything that everyone hoped for regarding the adoption process. However, I am confident that it does respond to the theme that emerged strongly at every stage of the consultation and that has been highlighted in every contribution today—the importance of prioritising a child’s best interests in decisions about adoption matters.
This bill addresses a specific element of the adoption process by amending the guidance for the court in deciding whether to dispense with parental consent. The bill’s amendments were prompted by this government’s commitment to implementing all six recommendations from the Domestic Adoptions Taskforce about the timely and appropriate completion of the adoption process. I acknowledge Ms Lawder for bringing forward those motions originally, prior to my time in this place. As she has noted, it has changed a lot, and the ACT government has committed to all six of those recommendations.
Four of the six have already been implemented, including the commitment of almost $3½ million in the 2018-19 budget to provide dedicated resources for child and youth protection services and for legal services to improve adoption and permanency processes. One of the two remaining recommendations was to consider the use of integrated birth certificates to maintain the identity and heritage of adopted children and recognise both birth and adoptive parents. Amendments to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1997 were recently introduced and will be debated today to respond to this recommendation by enabling the use of integrated birth certificates. This bill and that bill complete the ACT government’s response to the final recommendations from the task force.
The particular recommendation that this bill addresses asked us to explore amendments to the dispensing with consent provisions of the Adoption Act 1993 to enable the system to better respond to complex out of home care circumstances.
I am confident that this bill strikes the right balance between considering the needs of all parties involved in an adoption—the child or young person, their birth parents and carers—while maintaining a strong focus on the child’s best interests as the paramount consideration. The bill enhances the existing guidance about best interests in the Adoption Act—guidance that applies to all adoption matters, not just dispensing with parental consent. These amendments reflect a more nuanced understanding of child development and wellbeing, shifting the focus firmly on to what a child needs—to grow up feeling safe, secure and loved.
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