{"id":781334,"date":"2026-07-05T21:43:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T21:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/781334\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T21:43:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T21:43:24","slug":"national-commissioner-warns-queensland-adoption-plan-could-harm-first-nations-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/781334\/","title":{"rendered":"National commissioner warns Queensland adoption plan could harm First Nations children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia’s commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children has warned “adoption is not the answer” as Queensland considers implementing a controversial recommendation from an inquiry into the state’s child safety system.<\/p>\n

Sue-Anne Hunter said the recommendation from Queensland’s child safety inquiry to bolster adoption would “fall hardest” on First Nations kids, who make up almost half of children in state care.<\/p>\n

“It means the state can permanently and legally remove a child from their people and call it in the child’s best interest,” Ms Hunter told the ABC.<\/p>\n

“We’ve heard this justification before. Every removal in the Stolen Generation was framed as protection in their best interests.”\"Two<\/p>\n

The child safety inquiry’s report advocated for simple adoption, by which children maintain a legal connection to their biological parents. (ABC News: Curtis Rodda)<\/p>\n

The final report from Queensland’s child safety inquiry, published last month, said adoption should “not be limited by cultural background or ethnicity”, despite strong submissions by First Nations stakeholders against the practice.<\/p>\n

The report also found there was no evidence that racism was a motivating or causal factor in decisions to remove Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.<\/p>\n

Ms Hunter agreed that permanency is important for children, and that children should be removed from unsafe situations.<\/p>\n

But she said the government needed to focus on early intervention, and the recommendation showed that Queensland was going “backwards” on the issue.<\/p>\n

“If we look under the national agreement of closing the gap, our governments have already accepted that this over-representation is driven by colonisation, trauma and systemic racism,” she said.\"A<\/p>\n

Sue-Anne Hunter agrees that children should be removed from unsafe situations. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

The only form of adoption available under Queensland law is plenary adoption, a practice that severs the legal relationship between the child and their birth parents.<\/p>\n

The child safety inquiry’s report advocated for simple adoption, which involve children maintaining a legal connection to their biological parents, while recognising their adoptive parents.<\/p>\n

The government is still assessing the report’s recommendations but has already signalled support for increasing adoptions.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said he found the state’s adoption rate “completely unacceptable”. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)<\/p>\n

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli told reporters on Monday that since 2019, not a single child had been adopted from residential care.<\/p>\n

“One of the things I said to the minister is that I find that a completely unacceptable thing going forward, and she’s already put in place steps for that transition \u2026 to become a reality,” he said.<\/p>\n

But Dr Jo-Ann Sparrow, the president of post-adoption support group Jigsaw, said there was a reason adoption had dwindled in recent years.<\/p>\n

“Adoption became less visible because governments, practitioners and communities have actually listened to people who have lived through adoption,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve learned as a nation that the lived experience of adoption did not match the prevailing fairytale of happy families and happy endings.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Dr Jo-Ann Sparrow is the president of post-adoption support group Jigsaw.\u00a0 (Supplied: Jo-Ann Sparrow)<\/p>\n

Dr Sparrow was adopted in 1971 as a newborn. It wasn’t until she was 19 that she was able to contact her biological mother when the laws opened up.<\/p>\n

She said adoption should be a last resort, but if it had to happen, it should be under a simple adoption model.<\/p>\n

“Adoption has been proven to be a failed social policy, and it’s been put in the bin because there are other options for permanency that don’t erase a child’s connection to family, their idea of belonging, legal identity, all of those things,” she said.<\/p>\n

The child safety inquiry report said: “The enduring impact of historical forced adoption practices, and the 2012 apology for those practices, had a profound influence on Queensland’s adoption practice.”<\/p>\n

The commission said it acknowledged the “gravity of those historical wrongs” but said evidence suggested it had “contributed to an institutional reticence”.<\/p>\n

“The fear of repeating historical wrongs is a legitimate concern. It is not a licence to deny children who cannot go home the opportunity of lifelong legal belonging.”<\/p>\n

\"man<\/p>\n

Professor Daryl Higgins said the mistakes and injustices associated with forced family removal practices may not be avoided with simple adoption. (Supplied: Professor Daryl Higgins)<\/p>\n

Dr Daryl Higgins, the director of the Institute of Child Protection Studies at the Australian Catholic University, said his research had shown that people experienced lasting trauma from forced adoptions.<\/p>\n

He said while simple adoption is a positive step forward, it cannot guarantee “that all of the mistakes and injustices associated with past adoption and forced family removal practices will be avoided”.<\/p>\n

Dr Higgins said if children were expressing a desire to be adopted, questions had to be asked about why.<\/p>\n

“Is it because we have failed to support them in developing and maintaining a relationship with their biological parents \u2026 as children grow?”<\/p>\n

\"child<\/p>\n

Dr Higgins said if children were expressing a desire to be adopted, questions had to be asked about why. (Graphic: Peter Mullins)<\/p>\n

Dr Sparrow said if adoption is increased, there must be ongoing oversight and monitoring, consultation of people with lived experience, and independent complaints and review mechanisms.<\/p>\n

“Queensland already has other permanency options; long-term guardianship, permanent care orders, and kinship care,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Debate isn’t simply adoption versus instability; it’s about which permanency option best protects children’s rights over their lifetime.”\"Woman<\/p>\n

Amanda Camm said the response would “fix Labor’s broken Child Safety system”. (ABC News: Glenn Mullane)<\/p>\n

In a statement, Child Safety Minister Amanda Camm said the government’s response to the Child Safety Commission of Inquiry would “address the recommendations made to fix Labor’s broken child safety system”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia’s commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children has warned “adoption is not the answer” as Queensland…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12365,8571,64,63,52361,346188,502,369725,9967,369727,44,369726,369724,33846],"class_list":["post-781334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-aboriginal","tag-adoption","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-child-safety","tag-child-safety-inquiry","tag-children","tag-force-family-removal","tag-indigenous","tag-jo-ann-sparrow","tag-news","tag-simple-adoption","tag-sue-anne-hunter","tag-torres-strait-islander"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}