Adoptions. 27 June 2013 An extract from the Hansard record of the Legislative Council

Transcription

1 Adoptions Adriana Taylor MLC 27 June 2013 An extract from the Hansard record of the Legislative Council ADOPTION AMENDMENT BILL 2013 (No. 6) Second Reading Mrs TAYLOR (Elwick) - Mr Deputy President, I am glad it is today and yesterday is finished. I found yesterday a most frustrating day. On the one hand, in our federal government we had a change of leader. A leader who had been stabbed in the back for the last three years was finally toppled and I found that process not commendable to the whole of the political system in our country. Mr Dean - He accomplished what he set out to do once he was stabbed in the back. Mrs TAYLOR - Indeed. I understand the frustration of so many people in Australia who find it difficult to give due respect to political leaders that should be given to all of us as leaders because most of us, most of the time try to do the best possible job we can with legislation. My other frustration was that having spent all day on briefings and second reading debate of the Anti-Discrimination Bill, having that bill adjourned, possibly shelved, by a government which might have feared that there would be an amendment to the bill that did not suit them. That is how it appears to me. I found that very frustrating at the end of the day when we had all thought that yesterday we would deal with the Anti-Discrimination Bill; it was our intention to do that and I know it was the leader's intention to do that as well, and it did not happen. I feel as though today we could be having another chapter of a saga titled 'After the frustration of yesterday the battle between good and evil continues in the Houses of the Tasmanian parliament'. That would be making light of a serious issue here, which is amendments to the Adoption Act 1998 to remove discrimination against same-sex couples being assessed to adopt an unknown child. Leader, thank you for the briefings today. They take up time but it is important that we hear all sides of the argument and that we are presented with different people's views. The underlying importance of this act is that adoption has to be in the best interests of the child. That has to be of paramount importance. I cannot see that the change to this bill in the amendments here work against that. The leader read out some of the sections, but the Adoption Act 1998 says the court has to be satisfied as to certain matters, the magistrate has to have a report and any other evidence before it to be satisfied that the prospective adoptive parents satisfy the prescribed requirements, which currently are that they have to be in a relationship for at least three years and that they be residents of Tasmania and other things. There is an age prescription but I cannot find anywhere in the act where it gives an upper age limit. It merely says that the prospective parents have to be at least 18 years older than the child. If you were adopting a six-year-old you would have to be at least 24 years old. I

2 cannot find anywhere an upper age limit. I know that is an urban myth or a standard that they go by but I could not find in the legislation where it says that there is an upper age limit. Mr Finch - Mr Deputy President, my brother was in a situation with his wife and they wanted to adopt. They had reached the age of 52 and they were informed that they were not eligible to adopt because of that age. They had gone past the 50 years of age. That was 14 or 15 years ago. Mrs TAYLOR - I do not think the act has been significantly changed since I could not find anywhere in the act where it says an upper age limit. This is not to say that there is not a line drawn in the sand somewhere because when you have numbers of people wanting to adopt children and almost no children available for adoption then one would suggest that somewhere in the list there would be a cut-off point where you say we have so many people under this age. I could not find an age. Leader, you might check that for me in your response, whether there is a specified upper age. I could not find one and I would be pleased to find where it is if it is there. It says that they have to satisfy the prescribed requirement unless they are varied by the secretary under subsection (6). It is possible that even if there are prescribed requirements like age that they could be varied for good reasons by the secretary. The secretary or the principal officer has also had to give consideration, as far as practicable, to any wishes expressed by a parent of the child, particularly in relation to the religion, marital status, sexual orientation, race or ethnic background of the prospective adoptive parents of the child. Also, the secretary or principal officer has to have given consideration to any wishes expressed by a parent of the child at the time when consent to the adoption was given or dispensed with without access to or information about, and so forth, and any arrangements agreed between the parent of the child and the prospective adoptive parents - because there are obviously times when these parents are known to one another - for access to the child or for giving of information about the child. So there are occasions where adoptive parents and natural parents have a relationship with each other or are known to each other. Last of all it says, 'and the welfare and interests of the child will be promoted by the adoption', and that is the key point. This Adoption Act is for the best interests of the child. The interests of the child always have to be paramount. If that is taken into account then I cannot see that there needs to be restrictions on whether the couple is a same-sex couple or a heterosexual couple, as long as the interests of the child are paramount. If it is in the best interests of the child truly to be placed with a same-sex couple, and we have heard about occasions when there are a number of places where there are foster children who live with a same-sex couple or a heterosexual couple who do not fit the current prescription because there are many heterosexual couples who are not in a registered significant relationship, or married, who may also be fostering children, who would, under this current act, not be eligible for that child to be adopted by them. This amendment would remove discrimination against them. As long as the interests of the child are paramount, I cannot see a difficulty with these amendments. I have had discussions in the last few days both with the Archbishop of Hobart, the Reverend Adrian Doyle, and some of the advisers of the department, that there are only a few agencies that organise adoptions. One is the state agency under DHHS, the secretary of the department, and the other is Centacare, the Catholic adoption agency. Centacare would like to see an exemption for them not to have to assess same-sex couples, as to whether they are suitable for adoption. I do not believe that they are seeking an exemption for the whole process but only for assessing children.

3 However, the exemption would come under the Anti-Discrimination Act, not under the Adoption Act and that is probably the place where it ought to go. Having spoken with advisers of the Health department and in the anti-discrimination area, it appears to me that what we ought to be doing - and I am led to believe that there will be - is a total review of the Anti-Discrimination Act. We talked about how it needs to be more streamlined but there are also more basic things like the number of exemptions that we have in our act as opposed to the number of exemptions in the Canadian act, for instance. A review of the whole Anti- Discrimination Act is not out of the question. If the minister chose to do that, then that is probably the place where this issue could be addressed. In practical terms, and in the meantime, we know there are very few children, not just babies, available for adoption in Tasmania. There are many married couples waiting for so few babies. There are couples in significant relationships. There are couples who would come under the act if we passed these amendments. I have a great difficulty both with the Adoption Act and with this whole issue of why there are so few babies. Last year we passed the Surrogacy Act and we passed the Surrogacy Act including for same-sex couples because there are people - Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. Resumed from page 14 [2.38 p.m.] Mrs TAYLOR - Mr President, I got a little sidetracked just before lunch so if you do not mind, I want to go back to the point about the two adoption agencies and the fact that by this bill, if we remove the discrimination for one group of people in this amendment and that is those couples who currently are not able to access the adoption services, it does, however, limit the freedom of another group. There are only two adoption agencies in Tasmania: the state-based Adoption and Permanency Services under the DHHS and the faith-based agency Centacare. This bill will remove the right of the faith-based agency to discriminate against assessing same-sex couples or unmarried couples or couples not in a relationship under the Relationship Act for suitability as adoptive parents. I have contemplated an amendment for an exemption for the faith-based agency to be allowed to choose whom it processes but I believe that should be dealt with in the review of the Anti-Discrimination Act. In the meantime, since the agency has only processed three adoptions in the last 10 years, it is probably not a matter they cannot cope with. In any case, if they found it a difficulty they could apply to the Department of Health and Human Services to vary the contract they have for the services they now provide or could apply for an exemption. I do not believe they would have difficulty in providing counselling services pre and post adoption for those families who are successful in adopting a baby, so it is not my intention to move an amendment to the bill at this time. I do, however, want to address some other issues in relation to this matter of access to adoption, which has a bearing on the families we are trying to assist with this bill. Just last year we passed laws to make surrogacy legal and available to all couples in this state, including those who are discriminated against under this current adoption act. Why was that necessary? It was necessary because there are apparently many childless couples who

4 cannot find an easier way to have children. Many of them try IVF treatment at great personal cost because it must be heartbreaking to go through the process which they do, sometimes many times, and still not conceive. In the past, those couples might have and still now might look to adoption to complete their families and again they hit a brick wall. There are just so few babies and older children available for adoption. Why are there not many babies available for adoption? We conceive plenty of babies. It is partly because we abort up to Tasmanian babies a year, some of whom would have been or could have been available for adoption. Just last week we sent to committee a bill aiming to extend reasons for making abortion simpler and easier in Tasmania. The reasons for being able to access abortions were laid out more clearly than before in that it could be for any one of a number of reasons including current and future economic or social reasons. It might be that you think you might not be able to afford to bring the child up in 10 years' time, it might even be conditions as they are now. At the same time we have an adoption act that makes it difficult to adopt a baby and it does not at all encourage pregnant women to consider adoption. This appears to me to be vast discrimination. Let me remind you of some of the conditions in the Surrogacy Act. The Surrogacy Act allows for birth mothers' surrogacy costs - for instance, legal costs and medical costs. The costs can involve whether you are becoming or trying to become pregnant, the pregnancy or birth itself and the birth mother and the birth mother's spouse of any being party to the surrogacy arrangement in relation to obtaining the parentage order. Section 9(3) says: Without limiting subsection (2), the following amounts are a birth mother's surrogacy costs in relation to a surrogacy arrangement to which the birth mother is a party. (a) a reasonable medical cost, for the birth mother, associated with any of the matters mentioned in subsection (2); - that is, trying to become pregnant, pregnancy or birth and the parentage orders. (b) a reasonable cost, including a reasonable medical cost, for a child born as a result of the surrogacy arrangement; (c) a premium payable for health, disability or life insurance that would not have been obtained by the birth mother if the surrogacy arrangement had not been entered into; (d) a reasonable cost of counselling associated with any of those matters - a reasonable legal cost for the birth mother and birth mother's spouse. (f) the value of the birth mother's actual lost earnings because of leave taken - (i) for a period of not more than 2 months during which a birth happened; or was expected to happen or; (ii) for any other period during or after the pregnancy when the birth mother was unable to work on medical grounds associated with the pregnancy or the end of the pregnancy;

5 (g) travel and accommodation costs associated with the surrogacy arrangement; (h) another reasonable cost associated with the surrogacy arrangement, the obtaining of a parentage order or a parentage order that has been obtained. I do not object to that in the Surrogacy Act, I think that is fine. I have no problems with that but why does that not apply to pregnant women who might consider giving their babies up for adoption? We are told that one of the reasons we need to make abortion easier is for economic and social reasons. If their economic reason is that the birth mother is going to have loss of income or medical costs associated or any of the conditions that I just named in this Surrogacy Act, why would you not apply the same conditions to that? It might well solve many of the problems that we are trying to deal with in this particular bill where there are so few babies available for adoption. I believe we need to do a major review of the Adoption Act. I might have said that when the Surrogacy Act was passed. It has not happened yet so I am going to say it again and I am going to keep saying it. I am going to appeal to all those people who want to have children and are finding it difficult to have children to also lobby the government to review this bill. Why does it need reviewing? I have said already that the issue of exemptions should be addressed. This act should be far better in line with the Surrogacy Act in terms of conditions for pregnancies and births. Also, there is no definition within the Adoption Act 1988 for what known and unknown children are. It is only by assumption, when you read through the clauses, that you work out what known and unknown children are. That should be clearly defined, as should many of the other requirements which are scattered throughout the act but that should be stated at the front. It was 1988 when this act came into being. Our society has changed and societal values and norms have changed since What is more, the number of babies for adoption has changed since I believe this act needs a major review and it would then address the issue that we are addressing in this act. Thank you for your indulgence in letting me talk about the Surrogacy Act and the Adoption Act in general when I am supposed to be talking about the amendment to this bill, which I support.