ADOPTION

In reply to the Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (10 September 2008).

The Hon. CARMEL ZOLLO (Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Road Safety, Minister for Gambling, Minister Assisting the Minister for Multicultural Affairs): In relation to question 1, the Minister for Families and Communities has provided the following information:

The rate of adoptions of locally born infants has declined since the early 1970s mirroring a trend throughout the western world.

This is the result of significant social changes, including access to contraception, family acceptance of single parents, recognition of single parent households, provision of support services to increase the capacity for families to keep their children and an increased capacity for mothers and fathers to make informed choices about their babies.

In relation to question 2, the Minister for Families and Communities has provided the following information:

Adoption legislation and practice in this country is underpinned by the principle that the child’s interests are the paramount consideration. This principle is enshrined in the South Australian Adoption Act 1988, the Children’s Protection Act 1993, the national principles in adoption as agreed in 1997 by all the relevant Australian state and territory ministers, as well as the international conventions: the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Intercountry Adoption.

Most parents want to keep their children. Parents, grandparents and relatives of a child usually offer support to mothers and fathers to keep their child. In decades past, family members often placed pressure on women to relinquish their babies for adoption due to the shame on the family of a child born out of wedlock. That is no longer the case.

Low numbers of local adoption are not related to the adoption application process or to the issue of 'promotion' of adoption or otherwise. It is related to the fact that by and large, families do not want to relinquish their children for adoption and if they have some concerns or problems, families and society now provide support and options rather than relinquishing the child for adoption.

In relation to question 3, the Minister for Families and Communities has provided the following information:

A key platform of the SA government is to provide services to keep children safe and help keep families together. While adoption is one possibility for the long term care of children taken into care, the best interests of the child are always considered. Usually efforts are made to preserve the child's links with the family, including siblings, grandparents and other relatives while the child may be in foster care.

It is already possible for children to be adopted by their foster parents in certain circumstances and some of these adoptions do occur from time to time. The ease or otherwise of such an adoption depends entirely on the circumstances of each case.

An adoption order is granted for a child where the requirements of the Adoption Act have been met and the Adoptions Court considers it to be in the child’s best interests for an adoption order to be granted.

Should such an adoption occur and the child require special care, it is possible, pursuant to section 26 of the Adoption Act for the minister to enter into an arrangement with the prospective adoptive parents to contribute to the support of the child after the making of an adoption order.