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QUEENSLAND HOLDINGS (primarily with reference to Indigenous adoption)

  1. Department of Child Safety
  2. State Library of Queensland
    1. Community and Personal Histories Unit of DATSIP
    2. Archival holdings
  3. Queensland Adoption Support Groups
 

Department of Child Safety

Adoption is the transfer, generally by order of a court, of all parental rights and obligations from the birth parent(s) to the adoptive parent(s). Legal adoption was first introduced in 1928, but numbers of adoptions in Australia have fallen in recent decades. The reasons for the decline are mainly related to social and legal factors, increased fertility control and the advent of welfare support for sole parents. There has also been a reduction in the adoption of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. The introduction of the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle has meant the majority of Indigenous children are adopted by Indigenous families.

Queensland's adoption rates peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, with over 6,000 babies adopted in one four-year period. Under Queensland law, adoption transfers the legal rights and responsibilities of parenthood from a child's birth parents to his or her adoptive parents. The Adoption of Children Act 1964 and the Adoption of Children Regulation 1999, under review in 2005, provide the legal basis for adoption in Queensland. The Department of Child Safety is the sole agency with authority to arrange adoptions in Queensland and is responsible for administering the Act and its Regulations. Under the current legislation, children who are adopted and parents who consent to their child's adoption can receive identifying information about each other once the adopted person reaches eighteen years of age.

Two programs, the General Children's Adoption Program and the Special Needs Children's Adoption Program, cover adoptive placements. Children requiring placement under the General Children's Adoption Program are aged from birth to two years of age. Children requiring placement under the Special Needs Children's Adoption Program include children with physical and/or intellectual disabilities, medical conditions, older children, and children from particular cultural backgrounds.

As the Bringing Them Home report noted, Aboriginal people have a different attitude to adoption than that of Torres Strait Islanders.

It is commonly recognised by the community that the adoption of Aboriginal children is alien to traditional Aboriginal child-rearing practices. It is also acknowledged that in the past, numbers of Aboriginal children were removed from their families and adopted into white families.
Customary adoption is reported to occur in the islands of the Torres Strait, as elsewhere in the Pacific, and among Torres Strait Islander communities on the Australian mainland. It involves the permanent transfer of care responsibilities and is a `social arrangement' which serves to entrench reciprocal obligations thereby contributing to social stability. Traditionally the chosen adoptive family was in the same `bloodline' as the birth family. However, with `inter-racial' marriage now more frequent, adoptive parent(s) may be related only by marriage. There is also a growing practice of giving a child to family friends rather than relatives. As in general Australian law, customary Torres Strait Islander adoption makes the child fully a member of the adoptive family (Ban 1993 page 4).

In the eyes of Australian law, customary adoptions are private adoptions. They are not prohibited and are not recognised as legal agreements. Adoption in Queensland is not controlled by court orders, but approved by the relevant government department. The policy of Aboriginal Child Placement Principle is acknowledged in Queensland, but the legislation does not specifically incorporate the principles of ACPP.

The Adoption of Children Act 1984 stipulates that the Director, who makes the adoption order, will place a child from any ethnic background with an adopter from a similar background, unless such an adopter is unavailable or the welfare and best interests of the child, in the Director's opinion, would not be best served by adoption in a family of the same background (section 18A).

Furthermore, the Act does not require preference to be given to the child's extended family, with further options in order being another person in the correct relationship to the child, another member of the child's Indigenous community and, finally, another Indigenous family as the ACPP requires. Regulations made in 1988 direct attention to the ability of the prospective adoptive parents to `develop or maintain the child's indigenous ethnic or cultural identity' as one criterion for assessing the suitability of particular adoptive parents (Schedule 6).

Queensland departmental policy spells out the ACPP preferences in a way very similar to that of Western Australia. Unlike the WA policy, however, it specifically refers to adoption as raising issues distinct from child protection. Thus, in the case of a proposed relinquishment for adoption, the parent(s) is to be counselled by an Indigenous worker and counselling is to `explore alternatives to adoption, including family support, custody and guardianship options'. There is no provision for the involvement of Indigenous agencies.

The survey of Queensland welfare authorities commissioned by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody found that the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle had not been fully or comprehensively implemented across Queensland due largely to the lack of proper monitoring. There was concern that some departmental officers were unaware of the policy (O'Connor 1990). In Queensland, the standard definition of an Indigenous person is used; meaning identification by the parent is substituted for self-identification of a baby or child.

An Indigenous agency may be consulted, but only where there is no parent or other relative to provide the identification. In light of the relinquishing parent's right to confidentiality, this means that an Indigenous child will not be treated as such where the relinquishing parent does not identify as Indigenous herself or himself or does not identify the baby as such or where a non-Indigenous relinquishing parent does not notify the department that the child's other parent is Aboriginal or a Torres Strait Islander.

The Queensland Department advised the Inquiry that,

... in the case of a child whose parents were not married to each other at the conception of the child, and in relation to whom there is no other guardian by virtue of s. 6 of the Act, the consent required for the adoption of the child is that of the birth mother. However, this is not to say that the birth father is not considered and consulted by the Department in relation to the custody and guardianship of the child. Wherever possible, the Department attempts to ascertain the identity of the birth father of the child, and what his wishes are in relation to the child's future. The identity of the birth father is, however, often totally dependant on whether the birth mother wishes to, or will, identify him. Birth mothers are encouraged to discuss this with the birth father of their child.

Since 1 June 1991, legal changes meant adopted adults and birth parents may have access to identifying information and original/ amended birth certificates. Objections may be lodged to contact and/ or disclosure of identifying information. Non-identifying information from old records is available to adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents. Further information and application forms are available from

Adoptions Services
Dept of Child Safety,
GPO Box 806
Brisbane 4001
Phone: (07) 3224 7415 (for referrals to accredited local adoption counsellors)
Fax: (07) 3210 0350
Email: adoption@families.qld.gov.au
Website: Dept of Child Safety

 

State Library of Queensland

The State Library of Queensland holds some resources for tracing parties to an adoption, including Searching in adoption: a guide designed to assist people who have been separated by adoption (PAM 362.73409945 1990). Another resource is Self search - a program for adult adopted persons: the Adoption Information Service Research Project 1990 by Susan Tabak (PAM 362.8298 1990)

 

Community and Personal Histories Unit of DATSIP

Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy (DATSIP) regulates access to government records of Indigenous policy. Legislation such as the Aboriginals and Protection and the Restriction of Sale of Opium Act 1897 and subsequent protection acts enabled past Queensland government departments and agencies to exercise wide-ranging control over Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' lives. In doing so the Government compiled large volumes of records about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples until about the mid 1980's. Today these records are a valuable resource for establishing connections to family and traditional homelands. Community & Personal Histories facilitates access to the records for research into family and/or community history and other issues relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, such as proof of date of birth. All services provided by Community and Personal Histories are confidential and free of charge.

Contact details:
Community and Personal Histories Branch
Address: Floor 4, 75 William Street, Brisbane

Telephone:
1800 650 230 (toll-free within Australia, calls from mobile phones charged at applicable rates)
(07) 3404 3622

Facsimile:
(07) 3224 7304

 

Archival holdings

Queensland State Archives is custodian of the State's largest and most significant collection of government records. These include the following departmental files

History of Adoption

About the Project

For Project Contributors

Bibliography

Australian Adoption Records

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