An Act to amend the Adoption Act 2000 to make further provision with respect to the adoption of children and access to adoption information.
This Act is the Adoption Amendment Act 2008.
This Act commences on a day or days to be appointed by proclamation.
The Adoption Act 2000 is amended as set out in Schedule 1.
This Act is repealed on the day following the day on which all of the provisions of this Act have commenced.
The repeal of this Act does not, because of the operation of section 30 of the Interpretation Act 1987, affect any amendment made by this Act.
(Section 3)
(Repealed)
Insert after section 133:
In this Chapter:
(a) is shown on the adopted person’s original birth certificate as the adopted person’s father, or
(b) is a person whom the Director-General, Registrar or other information source is entitled to presume, under any law (including a law of another State, the Commonwealth or of a country outside Australia), to be the adopted person’s father.
Insert after the heading to Part 2 of Chapter 8:
This Division applies in respect of an adoption given effect to by an adoption order made on or after the commencement of this Division as a consequence of an application for an adoption order made on or after the commencement of this Division.
Changes to access entitlements were made by the Adoption Amendment Act 2008 (which inserted this Division into this Act). For access entitlements in relation to adoptions before those changes, see Division 2.
An adopted person is entitled to receive (subject to this Act):
(a) the person’s original birth certificate, and
(b) his or her adopted person’s birth record, and
(c) any prescribed information relating to the adopted person held by an information source (including prescribed information relating to the adopted person’s birth parents, siblings and adopted brothers and sisters).
Despite subsection (1) (a), an intercountry adopted person is entitled to receive his or her original birth certificate only if such a certificate is held by an information source.
An adopted person who is less than 18 years of age is not entitled to receive his or her original birth certificate or adopted person’s birth record, or prescribed information, except with the consent of:
(a) his or her surviving adoptive parents, or
(b) the Director-General if there are no surviving adoptive parents or if they cannot be found or if there is, in the opinion of the Director-General, any other sufficient reason to dispense with their…