Thank you so much for publishing this honest and sensible article. For many of us these issues have been blindingly obvious for many years. Other countries have long admired the fact that adoptions in Australia have been reducing steadily over the years and this is seen as a very positive outcome. Tragically our international reputation for social justice for children and families is now being damaged by the ill-informed comments and proposals of the Abbott government to wind back the clock and increase the number of adoptions, both domestic and international. For those who claim that foster care does not provide "security" for children, it can certainly be strengthened by guardianship orders to ensure that children are safe and protected. In fact, critics of foster care are often more concerned with the "security" of foster carers, who want to have a sense of "ownership" of a child, rather than the security of the child. There is never any justification for legally changing a child's identity and cutting all ties with their families and communities. This has already traumatised too many people and we are a very poor example of a caring nation if we refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past.

I disagree with so much of this article I don't know where to begin, but briefly, I cannot believe you don't understand why more people aren't interested in fostering children. Really? You can't see why a family, who invests hugely in the emotional, physical and psychological health of a child, sometimes to the detriment of their own children, who grow to love this child, despite sometimes appalling behaviour, only to have the child taken away and returned to its biological parents, might be traumatised. Parents,who, I might add, don't always provide anywhere near the nurturing life given by the foster parents.
Really, you can't imagine the sense of loss and bereavement these foster parents would feel, watching a child they have loved and sometimes transformed, being given back into the care of the person/people who abused them in the first place, with no guarantee it won't happen again!
You may not have the empathy to appreciate what these foster parents go through but I certainly do.
As for providing more welfare for the parents, they would probably use it the same way the use the welfare they already get. I grew up in extreme poverty, yet never lacked for love, security or stability. Poverty in itself doesn't produce abusive, neglectful parents.

I have enormous admiration for those who care for the children of others. Clearly those people need adequate preparation and support for their role and all decisions must be guided by the best outcomes for the child/children.

Louisa, the best interests of the child is not always with the biological parents. In fact,, it frequently isn't. I was a paediatric nurse for 30 years and I met parents who shouldn't have been in charge of a goldfish, let alone a child.
We have a higher standard of care for animals than children in this country, and the RSPCA has the power to get court orders banning people from ever owning pets. I could only wish we do do the same for humans.
I have seen appalling acts of depravity and cruelty done to children yet the perpetrator always has the option of "cleaning up their act" and getting their children back.
We would have more people willing to foster if they had a reasonable chance of keeping the child permanently. Many people are not fit to be parents, EVER, and no child should suffer, or live a life in limbo, because of this.

I have never known anyone who believed that it was always in the best interests of a child to live with their genetic parents. I doubt if anyone could be so foolish as to believe that. As I said in my previous post, the best outcomes for the child should guide all such decisions.

Have to agree with Big Nana!
And because I spent most of my formative years in foster homes and orphanages, and rife with every possible abuse imaginable!
And also because my mother, in her middle years, fostered a young mixed race child; when I as a young adult was finally living at home, and providing financial support!
I frequently went shooting to put some rabbit on the menu.
And mum knew how to bake them to golden brown perfection after soaking them overnight in a bucket of salt water!
Yum!
Young Judy took a real shine to me and wanted to go everywhere I went!
So, and with Mum's permission, she rode along in the old Chrysler, and watched as I downed a couple with clean head shots!
Young Judy remarked, "you're a very good shot Uncle R".
She lost all interest in the outcome, when it came time to dress the little varmints.
Nothing more was said about them until the next day at supper, when the food, steaming hot and smelling delicious, was on the table.
Young skin and bone Judy, wolfed hers down with relish, and then looked around with arched eyebrows for more!
She looked across the table and inquired, "Uncle R, is that the brown or fawn colored one"?
Whereupon, memories of dressing them came immediately to mind, along with a very prompt lack of appetite.
"Don't you want your rabbit uncle R", she slyly asked.
"No", I replied, "I seem to have suddenly lost my appetite".
"Well can I have yours then", she further inquired, to which I noddingly agreed; and watched in wonder, as it also disappeared down her seemingly hollow legs.
She stayed around six months, just long enough to thoroughly fall in love with her, when the welfare worker came to retrieve her.
I'm not sure whose heart was most badly broken?
Hers, Mums or mine, the closet thing she reckoned to a real dad, she'd ever had!
Simply put, it must be made much more easy to adopt, both here and there!
Signed by one who knows!
Rhrosty.