Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-10-28 Daily Xml

Contents

Historical Forced Adoption Practices

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (15:16): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question without notice to the Attorney-General on the topic of historical forced adoption practices.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: The National Archives of Australia estimates that around 150,000 adoptions took place in Australia between 1951 and 1975, a significant number of which were forced adoptions. Just last week, the Tasmanian state government announced that they were establishing a redress scheme to provide a trauma-informed avenue for redress payments for mothers who were subject to historic forced adoption practices. Tasmania will now become the second jurisdiction to adopt a redress scheme, following Victoria in 2024.

My question to the Attorney-General therefore is: will the Malinauskas government commit to establishing a historical forced adoption redress scheme for the South Australian mothers who were subject to forced adoption practices so that they can finally have justice?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Deputy Premier, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (15:17): I thank the honourable member for his question. I think this falls into the ministerial area of my colleague the Hon. Katrine Hildyard, the member for Reynell. I am happy to have some discussions with my ministerial colleague. I am not aware of a program in South Australia, but I am happy to discuss what future plans there could possibly be.