I welcome you all to Kirribilli House on this absolutely sparking Sydney day.
As I often say - as many people have often remarked - to be born in Australia is to win the lottery of life, and we would like to see more people winning the lottery of life by becoming Australians and that’s why, amongst many other reasons, what we are doing today is so important.
I’m really thrilled to be here with Barry O’Farrell, the Premier, with Pru Goward, the Minister, to talk about doing more to ensure that it is easier for Australians to adopt both locally and overseas.
Adoption is all about giving children a better a life.
There are too many children who have no parents, or no effective parents, and they deserve a better life and adoption is a way of giving it to them.
For too long, adoption has been in the too-hard basket. For too long it has been too hard to adopt and for too long this has been a policy no-go zone - and that must change. And as far as I’m concerned, as far as the New South Wales Government is concerned, as far as Barry O’Farrell and Pru Goward is concerned, it must change and it will change.
And just because we have made mistakes in the past, is no reason to conclude that we can’t do it better in the future. Just because we have made mistakes in the past, is no reason to go from one extreme to another.
So, I am absolutely determined to change and we will change and we will change within twelve months.
There are many foster parents in this country who would like to adopt. There are many foster children in this country who would like to be adopted. There are millions of children in orphanages overseas who would love to have parents and thousands of those, maybe even tens of thousands of those, could come to Australia and we need to make it easier for that to happen.
So, the Council of Australian Governments – at the initiative largely of Premier O’Farrell - did discuss this matter on a preliminary basis last week and we are determined to have a full discussion of this at our next meeting in April.
At least some of the states are determined to make it easier to adopt and as far as the Federal Government is concerned, we are determined to ensure that overseas adoptions are much, much easier than they currently are.
To that end, to prepare me for the discussion at the Council of Australian Governments in April, I have asked a taskforce of senior officials to come together to provide urgent advice on everything we need to do to make this process easier; what are the current impediments to adoption; what are ways that we can usefully adapt that will make it easier to adopt; what new countries can we partner with to make it possible for more children to have a better life and for there to be more good families here in this country of ours.
As I said, this has been a no-go zone for far too long. I am determined the change will happen and within 12 months, things will be different and they will be better.
It is a co-operative exercise when it comes to adoption. The Commonwealth can do little on its own. In partnership with co-operative states, we can make a very great deal of difference.
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