Bringing-Them-Home-Report-Web

AdoptionThe Victorian Adoption Act 1928 allowed anyone to arrange an adoption. Theprocess involved the mother signing a consent form and thereafter losing all rights inrelation to her child. In a wide variety of situations the consent requirement could bewaived. The child would then be matched with an adoptive couple by the agency orindividual making the arrangements. In the meantime the child would be cared for by thearranger of the adoption, often in an institution associated with the adoption agency. Tofinalise the process the adoptive parents would go before a judge to seek the formaladoption order. The emphasis in the Act was on ‘secrecy, safety and stability’ (Jaggs 1986page 125).My Mum became pregnant in Alice Springs. She knew a minister in Ballarat. They broughther to Baxter House. She was about 16 when she had me. My adoptive Mum knew Mumwas upset. My adoptive Mum was a nurse at Geelong Hospital and knew of it. My Mumsigned papers. My adoptive mum says the minister told the doctor that she couldn’t lookafter me because she was a single mother and not working … My adopted parents arefantastic. But it would be nice to know my cousins. I would have liked to know about myDad … I don’t think Mum had any options. I don’t know where I’d have ended up.Confidential submission 667, Victoria.In the 1960s police officers routinely investigated reports of girls under the age of 16years giving birth. Young mothers, whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous, were told thatif they did not consent to the adoption of their babies the father of the child would beprosecuted for carnal knowledge.Under the Adoption Act 1964 adoptions were more regulated. Adoption agencies hadto be approved by the Chief Secretary of the Social Welfare Department. The AboriginesWelfare Board was one of the ‘private’ agencies approved under the 1964 Act.Adoption wasn’t one of the … major functions [of the Aborigines Welfare Board] but the Boardwas one of 23 adoption agencies in Victoria at the time. If you really wanted a baby and you werestruggling and couldn’t get a baby through a normal adoption agency, you went to the AboriginesWelfare Board and you could get yourself a baby (Professor Colin Tatz evidence 260 page 15).Although adoptions were more regulated after 1964, many procedures are stillunclear. Some adoptive families simply returned children they no longer wanted. SomeIndigenous parents found out that they had unknowingly agreed to relinquish childrenwhen they believed they were placing them in temporary care. Still others simply couldnot locate children who had been fostered or adopted by the agency.See what happened was, [my adoptive] dad served up near Darwin during the SecondWorld War, and he seen how bad black fellas got treated up there. So he decided if he couldhe would do something to help Aboriginal people. Now, back in the sixties obviously, theway society was then, they felt the best thing was, you know, adopting kids and stuff likethat … On the adoption forms it’s got written there in somebody else’s handwriting – not[my mother’s], because it just doesn’t match her signature and stuff like that – reason forgiving up the child is ‘no visible means of support’. Now, generally that could be accurate,but in the case of [the] Aboriginal community and kids, that’s on nearly every form or