Child Safety Minister Margaret Keech introduced into Parliament this week, new laws that will modernise Queensland’s adoption practice, Carolyn Male MP, Government Whip and Labor Candidate for Pine Rivers said.

“The Adoption Bill 2009 will overhaul the Adoption of Children Act 1964 and deliver contemporary, fair adoption laws. No longer will we have the most restrictive adoption laws in the country,” Carolyn Male MP said.

“Queenslanders have clearly told us the current adoption laws are not fair, we have listened, and we are responding with significant reform. These reforms are in line with the Bligh Government’s vision for a fairer Queensland.”

Major areas of reform are:

- Open adoption - for the first time, adoption laws in Queensland will provide for open adoption practice which will allow a child’s birth and adoptive families to know each other from the time of the adoption, or to choose to have a closed adoption arrangement.

- Open adoption practices will make it easier for the Department of Child Safety to support adoption as an option for children in care when reunification to parents is not safe or possibly never will be. In these cases, children and young people need stability and permanency that can sometimes be best provided for through adoption.

- Adoption orders to be made by the court - adoption has significant legal consequences as it changes a child’s legal identity and legal relationship with his or her birth parents, which makes adoption an appropriate matter to be decided by a court. Queensland is the only Australian jurisdiction where adoption orders are made administratively.

- Eligibility - eligibility to lodge expressions of interest to adopt will be extended from married couples to de facto couples who have been in a relationship for at least two years.

- Access to information - provides changes to make adoption laws fairer and ensures all persons have the same right to access information about their adoption, regardless of when an adoption took place. However, people associated to an adoption prior to June 1991 and who have requested not to be contacted, will still be able to have those requests continued and be legally enforced if required.

Pending passage through Parliament, it is intended for new adoption laws to be fully implemented by 1 October this year.