Page 1944 - Week 07 - Thursday, 13 August 2020
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We were careful to consider professional expertise and research evidence to complement the community’s perspectives and lived experience that also shaped this bill. The breadth of expertise and evidence ensured that the bill reflects a contemporary understanding of child wellbeing, enhancing the guidance for the court, by considering facets of best interests such as cultural inheritance.
It is important to note that the inclusion of cultural inheritance does not preclude the court from making an adoption order when the prospective adoptive parents do not share the child’s cultural heritage. In the bill, cultural inheritance sits alongside personal identity and sense of belonging. These complementary concepts will guide the court in considering the likely effect of a decision on the whole life of the child. In this context cultural inheritance requires active efforts to preserve and support diverse aspects of culture that a child would ordinarily inherit from their birth family as they grow up.
Importantly, the bill also addresses a key finding from the consultation—the need to ensure that children’s voices are heard and reflected in decisions about adoption matters. It aims to better support children to freely express their needs and wishes, based on their level of understanding and maturity.
It is important to note, as I did when introducing the bill, that the bill does not seek to make domestic adoption in the ACT easier or more difficult; rather, it shifts the focus away from why a child is in out of home care. This will better support the court to determine a child’s best interests now and into the future, rather than making a decision that centres on the adults who are involved.
In this way the bill addresses the damaging effects of an adversarial process that focuses on birth parents’ past behaviour. Prioritising the child’s best interests makes it more likely that birth parents will be supported to maintain a relationship with their child post adoption, to enhance the child’s wellbeing.
I want to thank the individuals and organisations who were involved in the consultation, development and review of this important bill. Many people shared their personal experiences with honesty and courage, and these contributions have helped to shape the bill we are considering today.
I also want to advise that I will not speak at the detail stage because, as Mrs Kikkert indicated, we will be supporting her amendment. I welcome Mrs Kikkert’s amendment and I am pleased to be able to support it today.
Reviewing how the amendments that we are making today work in practice will support transparency and ensure that the amendments are operating as intended. This will enable us to check that the changes we have made to sections 5 and 35 reflect contemporary understandings of child development and wellbeing.
I thank Mrs Kikkert and Ms Le Couteur for meeting with my office and with CSD representatives to work through the important questions that they had about this bill and how the amendments will guide the court’s decision-making. Again I thank
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