The Adoption Process in Australia

Adoption as a formal statutory procedure began with the Western Australian Adoption of Children Act 1896 and has always been restricted to “full” rather than “simple” adoptions. Since the 1920s, some 200,000 Australian born children have been adopted there, of whom one-third were adopted by birth parents or relatives. In keeping with the experience of the U.K., the U.S. and other western societies, the rate of annual adoptions increased in the 1960s, peaked in the early 1970s, and has been in decline ever since.1 As recently reported:

While the total number of adoptions has remained relatively stable over the last nine years, there has been a 17-fold decrease in adoptions since the 1970s. This can largely be attributed to a decline in adoptions of Australian children. In contrast, the number of intercountry adoptions has tripled over the last 25 years. There has also been a dramatic increase in the proportion of intercountry adoptions over this period—from 4% of all adoptions in 1980–81 to 73% in 2005–06.