Bills

Adoption (Review) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

The Hon. M.L.J. HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Minister for Investment and Trade, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Defence Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (20:53): I rise to support much of what is in this bill. I think in many respects it is a very purposeful and important bill, but I indicate that there are some aspects that I will not be supporting. I commend the guiding principles and objective of the bill outlined on page 3, and in particular 3(1)(a) which provides:

(1) The objects of this Act are—

(a) to [look to] the best interests, welfare and rights of the child concerned, both in childhood and in later life, must be the paramount consideration in adoption law and practice;

I think that is a very purposeful and appropriate object. It goes on:

(b) to promote the principle that adoption is to be regarded as a service for the child concerned;

For the child concerned. I think that is the second most important object of the act. That is why I think later on in the act it loses sight of those two objects, particularly in respect to questions about same-sex adoptions by LGBTI couples or single people, rather than requiring that the adoptions be directed towards a man and a woman, which of course is being removed from the act by certain amendments outlined in clause 12(1) and I think later in clause 12(4).

I want to address those general principles because, although the other matters addressed in the bill warrant full support, those particular clauses and parts of the act clearly, listening to members earlier, have created some interest in the chamber and are unlikely to be supported by many and need to be dealt with separately. I want to deal with some of the questions that arise from those propositions.

One question about the rights of the child outlined in the object of the bill is: what is in the best interests of the child? It is my view that the best interests of the child are served in the case of adoption by seeking adoptive parents who are a man and a woman so that the child has the opportunity to experience being brought up by loving parents who include a man and a woman. My fundamental view as a conservative is that every child has a right to be known to parents, one of whom is a man and one of whom is a woman, one of whom is their father and one of whom is their mother. I think that is a fundamental right.

I completely reject the proposition that to hold that view is in any way discriminatory or not equal or denying equality to others. I just think that when it comes to children, ideally they have a right to know who their father is and they have a right to know who their mother is. If that is not possible, and you have either lost your parents or for one reason or another are up for adoption, I think you have a right to be adopted into a situation where you have an adoptive mother and father and an opportunity to at least start from that baseline.

There will always be cases where children are born and raised in loving arrangements by parents of the same sex, or by single parents. The law does not propose to interfere with arrangements when they evolve in that way for family reasons or by agreement between or within families or by dint of circumstance. There are lots of occasions when those outcomes arise. However, this act seeks to amend the law to require it or make it so. That tends to create a whole lot of unintended consequences.

For example, a couple dies in a car crash but their child survives. The child finds itself in an adoption situation. The parents indicate, either in their will or by some act, that, in the event of their death, they would like their child to be adopted by a heterosexual couple—a man and a woman. The effect of this clause could well result in that not being the outcome, that their child could be adopted either by a single person (either male or female) or by a same-sex couple. Is that right or wrong?

The effect of this bill would be to make it, if not illegal, certainly outside the law to indicate as a parent that you would like your child to be adopted by a couple who are a man and a woman. I just do not think that is right. I think you do have some rights as a parent in the event of your death to set out your wishes in writing, or through instruction in some form, to whom your children should be adopted.

A risk with this bill is that that right is taken away. The government system says no whether you like it not, or whether your wishes were in one direction; the government says it knows better, and your child could be adopted out to a same-sex couple or a single parent. I just do not think that is right. I respect the fact that many other members in the house think it is okay. No-one is right and no-one is wrong on these issues—I think we just come from fundamental philosophical positions and moral viewpoints. I am not in any way critical of those who would not hold that view, but to me it is true.

The broader issue of whether, by disagreeing with this measure in the bill, you are discriminating against same-sex couples, is one that I reject. I think most of us in the chamber, certainly in my case, are extremely open and accepting of same-sex relationships. They are part of the human diaspora, they are part of who we are as a community, and I think quite an interesting and vibrant and important part of who we are, and they always will be.

There will always be an LGBTI and same-sex community in every community on the planet, and in many senses that is a fantastic thing for the colour, for the life and for the vibrancy of that community. I would be the first to say that there should be no acts of unpleasantness in any form, or offence directed to anyone in the community based on their diversity, particularly in regard to sexuality.

It does not hold that by rejecting a notion of adoption of children to same-sex couples that you are in some way denying equality, or denying rights to same-sex couples, and I believe it does not imply that you are discriminating. The fact is that children are born to a man and a woman, unless there is some medical intervention, and I do not think it is out of order to hope to ensure that this parliament passes laws that in the case of adoptions sees that continuing so that the children have the right to a father and a mother as they grow up in an adopted situation.

Another argument that comes into play whenever these issues arise is the issue of faith and Christianity. People are either in heated argument accused of being religious fanatics, or they are accused of being told what to think and told what to say by church officials or by religious leaders, or else they are told they are terrible people because they are discriminating against gay people, and there is all this heat that comes in the direction of those who argue for family values, and for children to have the right to be brought up by mother and a father. I reject all of that. I reject all of that completely.

A lot of us in this chamber are people of faith who have religious convictions. That does not mean that every utterance and every thought we have has been dictated to us by anyone, or a member of the clergy, or any one church, or any one individual. It is just a silly proposition, in my view, and it is one that is used by those who want to bash the churches, bash faith in principle, and who are agnostic and hate anything to do with religion. That is another right that people have—a right to a religious view—and they should not be belted up for having them. In fact, without such faith and without such principles it would be a very different world, indeed. So, I reject that as a criticism for opposing those specific measures in the bill.

Essentially, I think this is a good bill, except inasmuch as clause 12, subclauses (1) through to (4), includes changes to the law that mean that children will be adopted into family situations that are other than a man and a woman. I add that I also have some issues with single person adoptions. That is not to say that there are not millions of examples of successful same-sex adoptions that come about simply through family circumstances—there are.

I remember having an employee, when I was running childcare centres and in the childcare industry, who through IVF managed to have children as a single woman. It was the first time that it really made me stop and think about what I considered to be right or wrong about that. She had a child through IVF, and then later got married and had two children as a married woman; I think she finished up with three children. She was a fantastic person, but it did get me thinking about whether that is right or wrong.

It is interesting the way these changes to the law—and this is one we are considering today—are changing the way society thinks, acts and lives. I am not sure that is a good thing that now, through IVF as a single person, to have a baby whenever you want and not have to go through the tacky process of having a relationship, having to go through the awfully inconvenient process of actually meeting somebody and having to get along with them, and maybe love them and maybe set up a family environment where there is a man and a woman bringing up the child—awfully inconvenient. It is so nice if you can run off and through IVF, or some other process, or through adoption, get yourself a child without having to go through that awfully inconvenient process of having a partner.

Mind you, most of us would probably ask ourselves why our partners put up with us in the first place and consider ourselves to be extremely lucky to have one. It does make me stop and think. I think as a parliament we ought to be encouraging people to actually make babies and have babies together through developing deep, meaningful and loving relationships with another person and setting about the business of having child or, being a couple who are childless, adopting a child and finding the joy of family, parenting and having children through that process. I think that is what we should be encouraging, rather than creating legal devices whereby people can just, if you like, check out of the relationships business and start having children.

With a lot of this legislation I see from time to time in parliament, and I think that this particular clause in this particular bill is an example, I often get the sense that it is really about the adult and not the child. It is really about me, me, me. It is, 'I want a child, and I am single and I don't want to have a relationship. I want a child, so I'm going to have one, and I want the law to enable that,' or, 'I'm in a same-sex relationship. I can't have a child naturally because I'm in a same-sex relationship and that's not the way that nature has worked it, so I want a legal device where I can either adopt one or I can have one through IVF. It's all about me. I want, I want, I want.' That's how it seems to me.

I come back to the object of the bill, which is a very good one, when it says that it is not about the adults, it is not about the parents. It says that the main principle is 'that adoption is to be regarded as a service for the child concerned'—for the child concerned, not for the parents. It is not about what the parents want; it is about what the child wants, and it is about the rights of the child both in childhood and in later life. That must be the paramount consideration, not what we adults want. We are not here to make laws for ourselves as adults. We are here to make laws for the kids.

How are we to know what the child will think when they are an adult about the system having adopted them out to a single parent or to a same-sex couple? They may be quite relaxed about that, or they may sit down as an adult and look back and say, 'I'm really sorry that the system did that to me because I would like to have started from the baseline of having a mother and a father, male and female, and then make up my own mind about whether I want to embrace other lifestyles or other sexualities'.

For all those reasons, I think that particular aspect of the bill is one I cannot support as a conservative. I understand that the minister is going to rearrange the bill in a moment so that we can vote on the other good measures and wonderful aspects of this bill separately to the questions I have raised in my short address. That is a good thing, and I commend her for that. I look forward to voting on both measures shortly.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Newland appears to be standing up trying to attract attention to himself.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland) (21:10): I am. May I have the call, please?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You have.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON: Thank you. I do not intend to hold the house for long because I think I am the last person standing between here and home, so I shall not take longer than necessary. I start this bill, as I said earlier on the Relationships Register Bill and a couple of others that are either before us or about to be before us, from the same point; that is, the rights of the child are paramount here because we are making a decision on behalf of the child.

When the state authorises adoption, we are making a decision on behalf of the child on who their parents or parent will be—effectively forever, in terms of adoption, but, for the purposes of efficient decision-making, at least until they are 16 in some cases and 18 generally. If we are going to do that, then I think it is incumbent on us as a state to ensure that we place them in the best possible circumstances. There is a substantial amount of research that states that the best possible circumstances for a child are in a house where a mother and a father are married and love each other.

The minister is quietly raging in front of me—it is very polite raging—but that is the evidence. Where the state can ensure that it can place children into those circumstances, it should, because adoption is already difficult enough. It is not that you have an adoption into a great family and everything is happy families afterwards, because it does not work like that. It brings its own trials and tribulations that are unique to those adoptive relationships. We put up with that, we take these positions of accepting adoption because we know that in the long run, despite those difficulties that may arise down the track, it is still better for the child.

That is why I am very grateful to the minister for agreeing to split this bill. I think the bulk of the bill, as the member for Waite has pointed out, is quite run of the mill and makes useful administrative changes to the arrangements around adoption, and there is no argument from me on those. In many ways, the arguments around both single parent adoption and same-sex couple adoption are the same, that we are making a deliberate decision as a state to put children into a position that we know is not the ideal position.

That is not to say that children are not brought up every day in circumstances that are less than ideal; we know that is the case. It is definitely not to say that same-sex couples do not make great parents, because they do. I know any number of people who are in a same-sex relationship who are great parents and they have wonderful children. We cannot ever pretend that that is not the case, but we know that the ideal arrangement is where a mother and a father are married and they love each other—not an unhappy marriage, which in general can be damaging for children. That is the basis of my objection to same-sex and single parent adoption. There is no discrimination in it.

The current arrangements allow some single parent adoptions, and I think on a practical level it is very sensible. If we ever get to the point where there are a number of children who need to be adopted and we run out, as it were, of adoptive parents who would meet the sort of criteria that I outlined earlier of the ideal family, then I actually would be prepared to revisit the situation because often the circumstances from which children in state care are coming—and I know they are not the only people who ever get adopted, but they are my particular focus in this case—are very difficult circumstances and in the current arrangements it is very difficult to have a child who is in state care or under state supervision get adopted. Maybe whether it should be made easier to adopt children who are in state care is something that needs to be looked at in the future because, by the time they get into state care, things are usually pretty bad. I think I am right in saying that, minister?

The Hon. S.E. Close: Yes.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON: So, if they are in state care, something has gone horribly wrong and getting them into a safe loving environment is a higher priority than necessarily the case of the sexuality of the parents at that point, but I do not think we are at that point yet. For those reasons, I will be voting against what will become the second bill, or the bill that is split off, which I assume contains just a few clauses around those issues, and I will be supporting the first bill, which is the bulk of the changes that we are making. With those words, I urge the house to give earnest consideration to what will become two bills.

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton) (21:16): I will be very brief.

The Hon. T.R. Kenyon: I've obviously provoked him.

The Hon. P. CAICA: I have been provoked, but not necessarily by you, just the collective. I was not going to speak, but I feel compelled to say a few words on this particular matter. I will be supporting both bills that are being presented here and will certainly be supporting the bill that has been split off that supports same-sex adoption.

I do not necessarily want to provoke or upset anyone, but I say how dare anyone believe that it is only in a relationship with a man and a woman, a husband and wife, that a child can be properly looked after, that that child can only be looked after under that type of relationship. I say how dare people believe that.

In a different time, I was a minister and I acted on behalf of those ministers who were responsible for families and communities. I can tell you right now that some of the files that I witnessed during that period of time were quite horrific. I did not necessarily like acting in that position because there was always something awful bubbling underneath the surface that was always going to find its way up to the surface. A lot of that related to the circumstances under which children suffered in those relationships that some people are saying in this house are the only relationships that can deliver a safe and happy life and outcome for children. So, I say how dare people think that is the only way it can happen.

I know quite a few people who have been brought up with same-sex parents, and I can tell you that those people today have children, a happy life and are happy people, and their life became so much happier and more loving under the relationship that existed in the same-sex relationship that the parents—and I say parents because they were both parents of that child—provided for those children. So it is not mutually exclusive to believe that the only way in which children can be brought up is under what others opposite might say is the traditional or most appropriate way for children to be raised. I say how dare they think that way. How dare they think that way. It is not mutually exclusive, as I said, to the best outcomes of the child.

I do not want to ramble on, as some others have tonight. The diatribe I have heard tonight is why I am up here speaking now. I want to do it succinctly, and I also want to close this debate and get on and urge this house to do what is the right thing to do—that is, to pass both components of this bill and allow those circumstances that apply to the rest of society to apply to same-sex couples and individual people who may want to raise a child. Again, it is not mutually exclusive to perceived traditional relationships that a child being brought up by single parent is brought up in a loving, balanced household environment. With those words, I urge everyone in this house to support this bill and let's do the right thing.

Debate adjourned on motion of Ms Wortley.

At 21:20 the house adjourned until Thursday 3 November 2016 at 10:30.