The Basics of Adoption in Australia

In this video, Award-Winning Surrogacy Lawyer and Accredited Family Law Specialist, Stephen Page explores the basics of adoption in Australia.

Transcript

G’day, Stephen Page from Page Provan Family and Fertility Lawyers. Today, I’m talking about the basics of adoption. What is adoption?

Well, someone is a parent of a child, and there is then a transfer of that parentage from that person or people, so mother and father, to the adoptive parent or adoptive parents, and how does that happen? Well, there’s a court order.

Adoption has been around for hundreds of years. It’s always been based on a court order being obtained and legislation, and every state and territory in Australia has separate rules about adoption.

There all broadly similar, which is that you can’t pay for adoption, you can’t pay for the child, you can’t buy a baby, and you have to get state approval, which means that sooner or later, you will deal with a state authority.

And in New South Wales, it might be a community organisation which does work for the government, and ultimately, get a court order, and that will be in a state court, for example, the Supreme Court of New South Wales or the Children’s Court of Queensland.

So adoption within Australia, it’s very rare at the moment. We are at historically low levels, and every year, it’s the same message. We are not where we were in 1970, when we had those terrible practises with adoption, when nuns would take babies off their mothers.

When Australia had a population of about 10 million, and we’re now at 27 million, there were 10,000 adoptions a year. Now, when you winnow through the numbers, we’re looking at best a couple of hundred. It’s really, really low numbers.

If you’re looking at adoption in Australia, be prepared to be patient. Thank you.