Update 16 January 2017:

Queensland Parliament passed legislation to allow for adoption by same-sex couples on Wednesday 2 November 2016, removing a major barrier to the equal treatment of LGBTI people, and relationships, under Queensland law.

The Brisbane Times reported on this long-overdue law reform success here.

Update 11 August 2016:

On Saturday 6 August, the Queensland Government announced that, in response to this review, it will be proposing legislation to ensure that single people, and same-sex couples, will be able to adopt legally in Queensland.

The consultation report can be found here.

This is obviously wonderful news for rainbow families – both existing and prospective – and for LGBTI Queenslanders generally. I am thankful to have played a small part through this consultation. Please see my own submission to this review below.

Original Post:

The Queensland Government is currently undertaking a review of the Adoption Act 2009.

This is an important opportunity for the LGBTI community to let the Government know that the current discriminatory provisions contained in the Act – which prevent same-sex couples from together adopting children, and which also prevent a same-sex partner from adopting their partner’s child – must be removed as a matter of priority.

Full details of the consultation can be found here. Public submissions close 5pm Friday 11 March 2016. The following is my submission:

Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services

Child and Family Legislative Review

PO Box 806

Brisbane QLD 4001

adoptionactreview@communities.qld.gov.au

Sunday 6 March 2016

To whom it may concern

Submission to Review of the Queensland Adoption Act 2009

Thank you for the opportunity to provide this submission as part of the five-year review of the operation of the Queensland Adoption Act 2009.

In this submission, I will primarily focus on one of the nine questions posed by the Discussion Paper, namely:

2. Do you consider the eligibility criteria provisions of the Act to be fair and continue to meet the needs of children who require adoptive families?[i]

In my view, the answer to this question is unequivocally no.

As stated in the Discussion Paper, the Adoption Act 2009 currently requires that “To be eligible to express an interest [in adopting] a range of criteria must be met: [including]

The person has a spouse who:

• is also eligible
• is not the same gender as the person
• has been the person’s spouse for at least two years”[ii] [emphasis added].

This is clearly neither fair, nor is it in the best interests of the child(ren).

To begin, including a requirement that prospective adoptive parents must be in mixed-gender relationships, rather than in a relationship with someone of the same gender, is unfair in its discriminatory approach toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community, excluding the majority of LGBTI people from even applying to adopt children in Queensland.

This discrimination is not supported by evidence showing that children are ‘better off’ being adopted exclusively by cisgender heterosexual couples.

In fact, the overwhelming majority of credible research shows that children raised in same-sex parented families are as healthy, and as happy, as those raised by mixed-sex couples.

As Deborah Dempsey found in the 2013 research paper “Same-sex parented families in Australia”[iii]:

“[o]verall, research to date considerably challenges the point of view that same-sex parented families are harmful to children. Children in such families do as well emotionally, socially and educationally as their peers from heterosexual couple families” [emphasis added].

This conclusion was supported by research in the following year, by Dr Simon Crouch and others, that:

“children with same-sex attracted parents in Australia are being raised in a diverse range of family types. These children are faring well on most measures of child health and wellbeing, and demonstrate higher levels of family cohesion than population samples.”[iv]

These findings accord with reputable studies from overseas, with evidence consistently revealing that children from same-sex parented families experience the same levels of physical and mental health as their peers, if not better.

The criteria which restricts prospective adoptive parents to those who have a spouse of a different gender should be removed from Queensland’s Adoption Act 2009 as it unnecessarily, and completely without foundation, discriminates against members of the LGBTI community.

Even more importantly, it should be removed because it potentially denies an adopted child from having the best possible adoptive parents.

As the research referred to above demonstrates, parenting ability has nothing whatsoever to do with sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status.

Some cisgender heterosexual people make wonderful parents, while others do not. The same is undoubtedly true of members of the LGBTI community.

But to determine that only people who are in mixed-gender relationships may apply to become adoptive parents, while the LGBTI people who would make wonderful parents may not, carries with it the inherent risk that a child misses out on being adopted by more suitable parents solely because the Queensland Parliament has determined that those people do not have the ‘right’ sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status.

After all, it is only logical that, if the pool of prospective adoptive parents is reduced because of irrelevant criteria, the overall depth and quality of that pool is diminished.

If adoption laws are to be based on the best interests of the child, and nearly all people agree that should be the case, then this is another compelling reason to remove eligibility criteria based on the gender(s) of the prospective adoptive parents.

These factors – the discriminatory impact of the Queensland Adoption Act 2009 on LGBTI people, and the failure to take into account the best interests of the child – are both exacerbated in the current denial of the ability of people who are in same-gender relationships to apply to be the adoptive parents of their partner’s child (ie step-parent adoption)[v].

In this situation, and based on the other eligibility criteria contained in the Act, the applicant, their partner and the child(ren) involved would have been living together for at least three years. That’s three years of sharing a home and living together, for all intents and purposes, as a family.

What possible justification could there be to say that an LGBTI step-parent should be denied the ability to adopt their partner’s child, where they would otherwise be able to if they were cisgender and heterosexual?

In my view, and I would hope the view of the majority of the Queensland Parliament, there can be no justification for discriminating in this way, and denying these families – because they are families, irrespective of what the current law says – the legal protections that they require, and that they deserve.

Introducing adoption equality – by removing restrictions on the ability of LGBTI people to adopt, both ‘unknown’ children and their partner’s child(ren) – would also bring Queensland laws into line with the majority of other Australian states and territories, thereby aiding national consistency in this important area of family law and legal recognition[vi].

As the Discussion Paper notes[vii], NSW, Western Australia, Tasmania and the ACT all have existing adoption equality laws. In the time since the Discussion Paper was released, Victoria has also amended its laws to ensure that LGBTI people have the ability to adopt children[viii].

With South Australia currently reviewing its adoption laws, and the realistic prospect that adoption equality will be introduced there in the near future, that would leave the Northern Territory as the only other jurisdiction in Australia continuing to discriminate against adoptive parents on the basis of their sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status.

By passing amendments to the Adoption Act 2009 to remove discrimination against LGBTI people, Queensland Parliament would therefore be helping to recognise the 21^st century reality – that rainbow families exist, and that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people can be just as good parents as cisgender heterosexual people.

Thank you for taking this submission into account as part of the five-year review. If you would like more information, or to clarify any of the above, please do not hesitate to contact me at the details provided.

Sincerely

Alastair Lawrie

[i] Discussion paper: Public consultation for the review of the operation of the Adoption Act 2009, page 9.

[ii] Ibid page 8.

[iii] Dempsey, D, “Same-sex parented families in Australia”, Child Family Community Australia, Research Paper No. 18, 2013.

[iv] Crouch, S, Waters, E McNair, R, Power, J, Davis, E, “Parent-reported measures of child health and wellbeing in same-sex parented families: a cross-sectional survey”, BMC Public Health, 21 June 2014.

[v] The Discussion Paper states on page 12 that: “A person may apply to the Chief Executive to arrange an adoption of a stated child if: the person’s spouse is not the same gender as the person.”

[vi] Which is relevant to question 7 on page 16 of the Discussion Paper: “Are there approaches in other jurisdictions that Queensland could consider?”

[vii] Discussion Paper, Appendix: Adoption in Australia – Inter-jurisdictional analysis of legislative provisions.

[viii] ABC News, “Same-Sex Adoptions Laws Pass Victorian Parliament” December 9 2015.