From Apology to Action #Australia:
The Fight for Adoptee Rights and Systemic Reform.
“It wasn’t listed in the order of the day. Intentional? Wow, talk about a blink and you’ll miss it moment!”
This was my reaction when Report 66: Broken Bonds, Fractured Lives — the WA inquiry into past forced adoption practices — seemingly slipped under the radar today. Presented by Hon. Peter Foster MLC, the report details decades of coercive adoption practices that tore countless families apart. Yet, its absence from the parliamentary schedule raises serious concerns about the government’s commitment to addressing these atrocities.
Compounding the issue is Foster’s glaring conflict of interest. His silence and failure to push for real accountability leave many adoptees and mothers wondering if justice will ever be served. For those of us who have long campaigned for recognition and redress, the lack of transparency and urgency feels like another betrayal. (See Kakistocracy in Australia below)
As an adoptee deeply affected by the traumatic legacy of forced adoptions in Australia, I have spent much of my life fighting, especially the last ten years since reunion, for my own identity and recognition, redress, and justice for myself and others like me. The inquiry into forced adoptions in Western Australia is a significant milestone, but it has glaring shortcomings, particularly in addressing the expectations and demands of adoptees who have lived through this trauma.
The Shortcomings of the WA Forced Adoption Inquiry
The 2010 apology issued by the Western Australian government, although groundbreaking at the time, fell short in recognizing the lifelong pain and trauma experienced by adoptees. It primarily focused on the experiences of mothers, with adoptees being treated as secondary victims. This narrow framing continues to pervade the narrative around both adoption and forced adoptions. The recent inquiry does little to rectify this, even though the findings acknowledge the trauma both mothers and adoptees endured.
We approach nearly 12 years past the National Apology for Forced Adoption, which was in on the 21st of March 2013 by then Prime Minister Julia Gillard. We are still facing the reality that zero of the 20-odd recommendations from the accompanying senate enquiry are yet to be implemented.
The lack of ongoing commitment to the apology to adoptees remains a critical gap. We are not merely extensions of our mothers’ stories. We are individuals who were stripped of our identities, deprived of our birthrights, and condemned to navigate a lifetime of confusion, displacement, and unresolved grief. While the inquiry’s recommendations for a redress scheme, psychological support, and systemic reforms are a step in the right direction, there remains no clear timeline or commitment from the government to implement these measures.
What’s more frustrating is the continued marginalization of adoptee voices in this discourse. Our experiences — the lifelong identity crises, struggles with belonging, and mental health challenges — are often overshadowed by the broader narrative focused on mothers. This is not to diminish the suffering of mothers who were coerced into giving up their children, but the adoptees’ perspective needs equal attention, as we, too, bear the emotional and psychological scars of this institutional abuse and the default lifelong trauma of adoption separation.
HumanAbility and the Critical Gap in Vocational Education and Training (VET)
In addition to advocacy for direct recognition and redress, my work through HumanAbility seeks to address the glaring gaps in how our society educates professionals to deal with adoptees and the trauma we face. A stark reflection of systemic ignorance is that, in Australia’s Vocational Education and Training (VET) system, adoption-related issues are almost entirely absent — except for a bizarre mention in a Certificate IV for greyhound racing.
This absence reveals how poorly our society understands and supports those affected by adoption and forced adoption. Through HumanAbility, I am working to integrate adoption-related training into the VET system, particularly for mental health workers, social workers, educators, and other professionals who interact with adoptees and their families. We need a trauma-informed framework to better equip these professionals to support adoptees’ unique challenges — whether they be struggles with identity, complex trauma, or the search for belonging.
The lack of such education perpetuates a cycle of systemic neglect. Without proper training, professionals remain ill-prepared to provide the support adoptees need, and this gap contributes to the ongoing harm faced by many survivors of adoption and forced adoptions. The goal is to bridge this divide by developing modules and training programs that are informed by lived experience, practical knowledge, and the realities of what adoptees face daily.
More Information Here:
The Government’s Refusal to Establish a Royal Commission
Adding to my frustration, I have personally been told by the office of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that there is no intention to establish a Royal Commission into forced adoptions at this time. I was informed that Royal Commissions are only established in “exceptional circumstances,” and while forced adoption practices are acknowledged as wrong, the government does not view them as warranting such a high-level investigation even though various legal scholars have deemed not only Forced Adoption but also Adoption as “exceptional circumstances.”
Anthony Albanese, that at this time, there is no indication or intention to establish a Royal Commission into this issue.
“In terms of your request for the establishment of a Royal Commission into forced adoption, Royal Commissions are a form of non-judicial and non-administrative governmental investigation and are only established in exceptional circumstances. Royal Commissions are established by the Governor-General, in accordance with the Royal Commissions Act 1902 and on the advice of the government, to inquire into matters of public importance. The government of the day determines the need to request a royal commission. At this time, the Government has not indicated an intention to establish a Royal Commission into this issue.”
office of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
This response is deeply disheartening. A Royal Commission is exactly what is needed to comprehensively investigate the systemic abuses that allowed these practices to thrive for decades. Without a Royal Commission, there is no formal mechanism to hold the institutions responsible for these atrocities fully accountable. It also limits the scope for legal reform, leaving survivors of adoption and forced adoption without adequate means to seek justice.
The refusal of the government to act on this front underscores a broader resistance to confront the depth of the harm caused. While apologies and inquiries are important, they are only part of the process. True justice for adoptees and mothers requires a full reckoning — something that can only be achieved through a Royal Commission.
Also See:
The Broader Picture: What Needs to Happen Next
The current discourse around adoption and forced adoptions nationally must evolve if we are to truly address the harms caused. First and foremost, adoptees need to be acknowledged not just as children taken from their mothers but as individuals who have lived their entire lives with the consequences of government-approved identity erasure and the trauma of both adoption and forced adoption practices. This means a clear, direct, immediate action for each state that specifically addresses adoptees, the harm done to us and the return of our original identities.
Secondly, the redress scheme proposed in the WA inquiry must be implemented with urgency nation wide. It must provide financial compensation, trauma-informed psychological support, and recognition of the lifelong impact of forced adoptions. This needs to be accompanied by an ongoing public acknowledgment of the systemic failures that led to these practices, holding accountable both government and private institutions involved in these acts of coercion and deceit.
Finally, we must overhaul the way our society educates and trains professionals on adoption-related trauma. The current VET system’s omission of adoption from most training programs speaks volumes about how poorly adoptees are understood and supported. By integrating trauma-informed adoption training and the truth of our nation's history into the VET curriculum, we can begin to dismantle the ignorance that allows adoptees to fall through the cracks.
Through HumanAbility, I will continue to push for these changes. This journey is personal for me, but it is also one shared by tens of thousands of adoptees and mothers who have been waiting for decades for the truth to be acknowledged and for justice to be delivered. We cannot afford to wait any longer. It is time for real action — action that acknowledges the depth of the trauma we have endured, addresses the systemic failings, and provides the support we need to heal and amend current policies and practices moving forward.
