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.

In my view, which is shared by many others around the world, adoption will not solve any of the problems which children face. In this day and age, we have to learn from the experiences of the past and create more child-focussed alternatives for children at risk.

More bleeding heart rubbish.

Solve the problem the easy, & best way. Eliminate all benefits from single mothers, who have conceived out of a relationship. With single motherhood suddenly no longer being a ticket to a welfare lifestyle, there will be lots of would be loving & supportive people adopting these kids, & making great parents. The kids would be true accidents, & not a welfare application, as so many are today.

There would no longer be large communities of single mothers, with 3 or 4 father unknown kids in housing commission, or cheap private flats, growing fat on welfare.

Not only would the kids be much better off, but the welfare bill for volunteer welfare recipients would reduce. Hell it would even reduce the number of second & third Muslim wives being taxpayer funded as single mothers.

Oh, & sack all social workers who have been in the "industry" more than 4 years. Lets stop it becoming an even bigger industry, it is one Australia could well do without.

Do you include widows and deserted wives Hasbeen, or just those pregnant by accident, say as a consequence of date rape and Rohypnol?
And given we are not to support any single mum, should mandatory abortion or even sterilization be included in your list of wants?
And what's the difference between a Muslim second wife and a christian's mistress or mistresses, all of who have equal chances of falling pregnant, and through no fault of their own, but rather, religious conviction or a con-artist of a man, promising the world to achieve his ends.
A very pregnant daughter was routinely informed during a weekend visit with her mum, her ex army future husband, father of her child and love of her life, had suddenly suicided!
Would you add her to your completely inflexible list?
Or your own daughters, who as humans, are also capable of being taken in by super salesmen out to get what he wants; or dumped by dead beat husbands?
My own abandoned mother tried for 3.5 years on her own, but was forced to concede defeat in hospital and hovering near death's door.
Fortunately, from your perspective, no taxpayer dollar ever found her way into her ultra slim purse.
All these ladies are already doing it tough, and were you given any power over their lives, a dam sight tougher!
When it comes to taxpayer handouts, the very first on my list of those to exclude, would be men supported by women, but still putting their hand out for a full government pension!
But particularly those high flyers and thrill seekers, who made an art-form of dodging tax, in their former lives!
Rhrosty.

The author of the article has reseasrched the subject and his opinion is sound and is derived from the realities of the international adoption situation. Louisa's comments are also very pertinent. We would like to think that our governments can learn from the wrongs of the past and so place the emphasis on providing well-supported consistent permanent care where necessary for every child who is unable to live with its natural parents. Foster parents often do not get the assistance they deserve, likewise there is insufficient help in the community for natural parents living with domestic violence and other issues that may damage their children. Its not appropriate to deny children in 3rd world countries their birthright to remain with their community and language group in order to satisfy the desires of weathier westerners to rear children. This is the road to creating another stolen generation!

International adoption is a system filled with documented and on-going patterns of adoption agency corruption, re-homing, baby stealing, child trafficking, coercion of the biological parents and legal violations. Corruption and abuse are so vast that nearly half the 40 countries listed by the U.S. State Department as the top sources for international adoption from 1995-2008 temporarily halted adoptions or were prevented from sending children to the United States.

I was adopted from a German orphanage by an American couple and collaborated with other "foreign" adoptees to create this video about international adoption. I couldn’t agree more with this article.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJlnfkRtBX4

Even better thought Hasbeen. Remove all welfare from single mothers and remove all welfare from every man who has fathered a child and make every male completely unable to get out of paying a significant portion of every penny or asset he ever earns until his child is 30 or is working in the profession he/she wants, whichever comes first. Deposit it in a special 'Child account' to prevent whinging that the mother is living it up on the proceeds.

That'll make all the boys zip up their pants unless they know they are able and willing to have a child, and changes the notion of who is responsible for contraception and each and every single child born.

Results? 1. Fewer children living in poverty because fewer women made to be solely responsible.
2. Fewer sexual assaults.

A win-win situation if you ask me. For children, women and tax-payers.

Further, let's stop all IVF from anonymous donors and make it illegal for the details of a biological,parent to be removed from a birth certificate. Make it mandatory that all IVF babies are given information about their biological parents.
If family and culture are of such importance then we should not be creating babies who have no knowledge of either.

Only from single mothers who got there by choice, or carelessness Yvonne, but otherwise I tend to agree with you.

Not that many men would be in the situation, as the women would not be supporting kids, without the taxpayer paying most bills, & there would be few intentional single parents.

Agree about a child account thing for kids after a relationship breakdown, if we know who made the kid, they should have to support the kid, but I think 18 years old would be fair.

Compulsory paternity testing would be required with that too of course. The mother should have to pay the same amount into the account, as the father should have the same right to child rearing.

Yes win win win, as the kids from accidents would then be likely to be raised in loving adoptive families, as they always were before this crazy welfare state took over all responsibility for all incompetents.

Even more win, childless people would not have to go off overseas to become adoptive parents.

Yep those bleeding heart people got us into a hell of a mess with all their welfare for so many who just want to bludge.

I remember video of Romania orphanages, not long after they applied for ECU membership, and therefore had open up to international scrutiny!
And in their state run orphanages, were kids left for days, in the beds they were virtual captives in; laying in a pool of their own urine mixed liberally with their feces.
They were routinely dehydrated, to lesson the load on the laundry.
One meal a day was luxury, and they were regularly beaten, with most responding by more or less permanently assuming the fetal position!
The only hope any of these kids have ever, be they from there or countries with worse records, is foreign adoption! No ifs buts or maybes!
And if that means losing their mother tongue and so called culture, so be it; but particularly when that culture tolerates examples of extreme child abuse or neglect!
And how dare they respond as young adults, by routinely critiquing adoptive parents, because they seemingly lost both mother tongue and or culture?
As always, the intending adoptive parents ask no assistance from anyone else!
And there are examples too numerous to mention where those parents have shelled out for their adoptees; to return to their homelands, when old enough; and contact with their birth parents and culture.
And great for the well heeled!
However this is not always possible, as many intending adoptive parents have used all their resources just getting their kids out and raised in a loving child friendly environment!
Yes to mandatory paternity testing, and Dad's wages or income/assets, garnisheed for mandatory child support.
Most would quickly realize a couple of critical condoms would be vastly cheaper; or even more so, if their so-called needs were attended by lady Palmer and her five daughters!
Rhrosty.

It seems unbelievable now that anyone could ever have thought that it was morally acceptable to allow anonymous donations of sperm and eggs to create children. Those children are now speaking up and so there are no excuses any more. Every child has a moral right to know about his or her genetic heritage, whether the conception took place naturally or via IVF or surrogacy. For too long the focus has been on what adults want, with scant regard for the outcomes for the children being created. We must learn from the mistakes of the past and do better in future.

Hasbeen:'Only from single mothers who got there by choice, or carelessness Yvonne'. Huh?!

No. You did not get my point. Take away the responsibility from the human who has the womb for the begetting of children. In.All.Circumstances.

So, it is only ever the human depositing sperm who is deemed to have made the choice to deposit said sperm in potential fertile soil.

Men like you, and the Runners of this world, are constantly on about 'careless' and irresponsible women. So, I'm humoring your perception of wanton women wanting baabies!, or are just jezebels luring innocent man-boys to do evil things. Go that one step further and decide it's time for the menz to take charge of all that baby-making business. Therefore, every child born unwanted is the fault of a careless, selfish man spreading his seed without any thought of the consequences.

Well I certainly get it now Yvonne. We have a man hating troll, interested only in punishing men for some perceived injustice. No wonder we have so much difficulty in intelligently solving problems.

Did he wake up to you & run away?

I'm so glad that this article has caught people's interest and generated some discussion. It's very unfortunate, however, that some people seem unable to engage in discussion without resorting to insults.