Nearly everyone agrees the 68-year-old Adoption Act is not fit for purpose. So where is the political will for change, and how much longer do families touched by adoption have to wait?
A case before the Supreme Court will determine whether a federal law meant to protect Native American children from being forcibly removed from their families is constitutional.
One of the state’s most significant powers is the ability to remove children from their families. Potential reforms in NSW could expand this already racialised power in frightening ways.
In 2005, almost 46,000 children were adopted across borders. Ten years later, just 12,000 were. The foreign adoption system is imploding, potentially putting children’s lives in danger.
Surrogacy is fraught with uncertainties. Proposed regulation, inspired by the way the caring professions are regulated, would protect the surrogate and provide certainty about legal parentage.