Adoption Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Adoption Amendment Bill.

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon NICOLE McKEE: I move, That the Adoption Amendment Bill be now read a first time.

Every year, about a thousand children and young people are brought to New Zealand after being adopted overseas. Most of these children join loving families who care deeply for them and who provide for their needs, but, sadly, our international adoption laws don’t have enough protections in place. Because of this, some children and young people adopted from overseas end up facing neglect, abuse, or exploitation here in New Zealand. It is difficult to know the scale of this problem, but I am aware that serious harm has happened in some cases. We have heard reports of children and young people being sexually, physically, or psychologically abused. They’ve been exploited for labour, enslaved, or trafficked. This is simply unacceptable. Our existing international adoption settings should not be allowing this to happen. That is why we are introducing the Adoption Amendment Bill. This is the first step towards fixing our international adoption system to make sure it includes adequate safeguards for children and young people adopted overseas.

Right now, children adopted by New Zealand citizens or residents may be eligible for citizenship by descent, or they can apply to access immigration pathways. We have discovered that recognition of these adoptions does not always involve safety checks on the adoptive parents, and sometimes, the adoptive process itself may not involve thorough safety checks. I am not prepared to risk the safety and wellbeing of these children because we do not have the legislative arm to do suitable safety and background checks of adoptive parents of overseas children.

The amendments in the bill will immediately suspend New Zealand from recognising overseas adoptions for the purpose of citizenship or immigration, unless the adoption comes from countries we trust to have strong safeguards in place. The suspension is temporary and will prevent harm coming to more children while we work on an enduring solution to this problem. I plan to introduce lasting reforms before this parliamentary term ends.

The amendments in the bill will make two substantive changes. Firstly, as previously stated, the bill will temporarily suspend the recognition for the purpose of New Zealand citizenship and immigration adoptions made in overseas courts where the adoptive parents are New Zealand citizens and residents. This suspension has some exceptions. The bill includes a list of countries that are exempt from this suspension. This is where we have been able to establish that the arrangements for adoptions include adequate safeguards for the children and the young people involved.

I am satisfied that the countries on the exempt list have sufficient safeguards in place to protect children and young people who are being adopted—for example, most of these countries are parties to the Hague convention on intercountry adoption. These changes mean that while the suspension is in place, only the adoptions made in exempt countries will be recognised while we work on the longer-term solution to our legislative conundrum. Let me be clear: these are adoptions by New Zealand citizens, or residents, of children residing in other countries, adopted under those countries’ laws.

To allow for a timely change to the list of exempt countries, if needed, the bill provides that the list can be amended by the Governor-General through Order in Council upon recommendation from the Minister of Justice. While this is an unusual power, it is necessary so that we can swiftly move to revoke a country’s exempt status if risks arise in its adoption system. It also allows a country to be added if we become satisfied that their adoption systems include adequate safeguards.

The second substantive change in the bill is to the jurisdiction of the New Zealand Family Court. Right now, the court can make adoption orders for applicants and children anywhere in the world. We’re going to limit that power so that the court, generally, only makes adoption orders where both the child and the adoptive parents live in New Zealand. There will still be exceptions such as international surrogacy cases or exceptional circumstances—for example, where a child overseas is an orphan and a New Zealand family member is best placed to care for them.

Finally, the bill will make consequential amendments to make sure that everything works smoothly. Because these rules are temporary, they are set to expire on 1 July 2027. However, the expiry date can be brought forward if an enduring solution is found earlier. This would be done by way of an Order in Council, which would need to be made by the Governor-General. This approach has been taken as the amendments present a significant departure from the current system for international adoption, and I want to ensure that the changes are in place for no longer than is absolutely necessary. However, I anticipate that enduring reform will be made before the expiry date.

We are progressing this bill under urgency because we cannot, in good conscience, stand by while children are at risk. We do need to act now. I acknowledge that this change won’t be easy news for some families and that they will be disappointed, but keeping children safe is our top priority.

It is not acceptable that our adoption laws have been used in ways that harm children adopted from overseas. We must close this legislative enabler. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. This is an important bill, and I will say straight away, at this stage, that we are supporting it. It is disappointing that the bill has been introduced and it is going to go through all stages and there hasn’t been any collaboration prior to the bill, essentially, being introduced—no real opportunity.

The other thing, I guess, is this: this bill does appear to be a relatively blunt tool. We know that adoption is misused and that as a consequence of that misuse, there are children and young people who have been exploited, and there are documented cases of that. But this bill will preclude legitimate adoptions from countries that aren’t exempt, and it must be said that amongst those are some of our Pacific neighbours. That will raise real concerns for people who have been embarking on an adoption process because it’s the right thing to do in that family’s situation, and they will, tomorrow, be barred from doing that.

I also note that this bill is, essentially, a band-aid—a temporary fix—whilst further work is done. This issue is not new; let’s face it. I’m not going to shy away from the fact that work was being done under previous Governments on this, and the fact that we’ve got this very short-term fix is perhaps a little disappointing. Had it been higher up in the Government’s priorities, perhaps more resources could have been put into a much more comprehensive and much more nuanced fix.

It is urgency. We are going to do this in all stages today, essentially, if we get that far. We will be asking some of those questions at the committee stage, and the Minister, I’m sure, will be happy to give fulsome explanations. But the list of exempted countries does not track the Hague convention countries. There are countries who have acceded to the Hague convention on cross-border adoption that are not on that list, and that seems odd. It seems to be saying that we don’t accept that those countries will adhere to their international obligations. There are also countries who have not acceded to the Hague convention who are on the exempt list, and that also seems odd, because it seems to be that there are countries which the Minister assumes will engage in appropriate adoption practices, but they haven’t acceded to the critical international convention which is the cornerstone of that. So there is a lot to be done here.

The other thing is this: this bill addresses the proposition that New Zealand recognises the legal acts of foreign States. There is an important international convention, if you like, that we will respect the orders legally and properly made in foreign States, whether that be marriage or adoption or civil decisions in courts or criminal convictions in courts. What this is doing is, essentially, stepping back from that and saying that for these purposes—for immigration and citizenship purposes—we do not recognise adoptions in, essentially, these listed foreign States.

It may be that for some, it’s fully justified, and if we think of Afghanistan and other countries with tenuous Governments, then you can accept that adoptions there may not meet basic civil rights and human rights standards. But in many of those other countries—and Georgia springs to mind, in the Caucasus, that is. It’s a country on the brink of EU membership, but it’s not on the exempted list. Why is that? That needs explanation.

This bill will have a real impact on many New Zealanders. I think that they will be alarmed to find out that plans that they have made about their family, and perhaps, almost in train, will be stopped today, and so there’s a lot of work to do.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand to speak on the Adoption Amendment Bill. Now, noting that this bill is coming to this House under urgency for all stages, and this is also the first time that, as Opposition, we have had the chance to look at the bill, so there are a couple of things I want to pick up on.

Just from the general policy statement, I think it is understandable, as we are discussing this bill today through the stages, that we maintain that the safety and wellbeing of our tamariki is the focus of this bill when we are discussing it. Although we are seeing roughly about 1,000 overseas adoptions recognised in Aotearoa each year under section 17 of the Act, which is one of the things we are going to be addressing here, we do see safety concerns and exploitation that needs to be addressed.

I echo the previous speaker’s sentiment that there is a question whether this bill is something that is a blunt tool that is being used where other things could have been considered in the meantime.

A couple of things I want to address—and these are things that I want to signal to the Minister ahead of time that we are going to be asking as part of the committee of the whole House stage, because, again, we won’t have access to the officials, or even allow for public consultations in the meantime—are that this issue, in many ways, was originally recorded in May. The Government had signalled very early on in May that this was something that they were going to be taking seriously. Understanding that there is a process that needs to be done, I’m really keen to hear from the Minister later on as to why, then, is this bill now being introduced in October; and if the wait from May to October was sufficient, why not allow for even a shortened select committee process so that way we are able to have a chance to engage with the public and engage with officials on this, and at least hear from both officials as well as key stakeholders in this field? That’s one of the questions I think it is really important to get some clarity on.

Also, when we’re introducing this, I understand the need when we’re looking at sunset clauses—in this case, I appreciate the fact that this is an interim measure and there is something that, hopefully, will be coming in in 2027 or earlier, and it will be by Order in Council. But the question that remains is: what are some of the transitional processes in terms of the reassurance for the current things that are going through, as well as potential monitoring? Now, that is in Schedule 1 of this bill, just from a cursory reading. There are definitely more questions to be asked around the monitoring aspect, which I think is really, really important, because we can use this as a transitional measure to stop something from happening, but what about the existing ones that are currently going through the process? That’s, again, something that we would like to have some clarity on from the Minister.

Now, just finally, I’m just going to pick up on—again, from a very cursory reading—the departmental disclosure statement. Again, I appreciate and understand what the Minister is saying, that this is being brought under urgency because even though there’s been a delay since the cases were first reported, we don’t want to see the potentiality of tamariki being harmed. But it’s also systematic of the way that secret bills—because this is the first time we’re seeing it—and also urgent bills have been introduced in the House, and not having the full package that has been expected of a bill like this if we are to have informed decision and debate and discussion on this.

We are looking at, just simply, the department disclosure statement. I have not yet seen the regulatory impact statement; at least, it’s not available immediately. There is no evidence that there has been a child impact statement conducted as part of this as well. It would be really good to engage with the Minister on this. Also—and I pointed this out over and over again the last time we had a secret bill—the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act consistency report is still not available on the Ministry of Justice website, despite what it says over here, that it should be available on the website.

In my second reading, I’ll talk more about the bill, but I think that’s where we are at in terms of the first reading.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am speaking on behalf of the Minister of Immigration in support of this bill, which we intend to pass through all stages today. This bill addresses inadequate safeguards in New Zealand’s international adoption settings. These settings require immediate legislative change to address the risk of harm to children and to young people, and to maintain the integrity of our immigration system.

I want to draw the House’s attention to a recent case highlighted in the media that underscores the serious gaps in our international adoption regime that we are attempting to address: a 17-year-old girl was granted a Dependent Child Resident Visa to live with her adopted family in New Zealand. Officials at Immigration New Zealand had flagged the case as being high risk; they were aware that the adoptive parents had been previously investigated by the police for trafficking. Concerns had been raised about the number of children that they had adopted. Interviews then revealed that the girl would be expected to hand over her earnings to the adoptive family once she started working. Despite these serious concerns, Immigration New Zealand’s hands were tied, and the visa was approved.

Under current legislation, our officials simply have no power to decline. The current system offers no grounds to intervene when an application meets those requirements, even when clear red flags are present. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case; there have been many other cases of concern, where children and young people applying for a visa are at risk of exposure to an unsafe environment within the home of their adoptive parents.

Other examples include allowing children to come to New Zealand when the adoptive father has been convicted of a string of offences, including violent offences, or where the adoptive father is known to officials for family harm incidents against his partner. There are also further cases involving multiple adoptions of unrelated children and young people to adoptive parents with insufficient income or rooms to house the children that they have adopted. These children have since become subject to exploitation, servitude, and abuse. These children have been adopted into families, in several cases, which cannot, and have no intention to, support them and provide them with the life that they deserve.

Our current laws do not allow officials to intervene, and we cannot stand by and watch it happen. It is simply not acceptable, in 2025, to have a law that enables child trafficking and bringing children to New Zealand to be harmed or neglected. Our adoption legislation is dangerously outdated. The Adoption Act 1955—now 70 years old—was written in a time when international adoption, child trafficking, and modern safeguarding standards were not well understood. It does not reflect the contemporary risks or expectations. As soon as this Government was briefed on the scope and scale of the gaps in our current law, which were resulting in children being adopted into households where they were being harmed due to a lack of proper checks on adoptive parents, we set to work urgently.

Officials across agencies have worked at pace to stand up an interim solution, which this bill provides. We could not sit around and wait for further harm and further work to occur before we took action. With children coming into harm’s way, we need to act urgently. Amendments to the Act will enable safer and stronger safeguards for overseas adoptions, to prevent non-genuine or exploitative arrangements. This bill demonstrates the Government’s commitment to the safety of children and young people and to maintain our strong relationships with our Australian and Pacific partners. The decision to proceed under urgency reflects the time-sensitive nature of this issue. Delaying change would risk New Zealand citizens or residents attempting to expedite adoptions in overseas courts, or an influx of visa applications, to avoid the new rules, which could put children in harm’s way.

These amendments are intended to be temporary—with a sunset date—in order to allow officials to develop a solution for permanent legislative changes in the interim. While we acknowledge the importance of select committee scrutiny, in this case, we must act quickly. Acting under urgency now means that the focus can shift quickly to developing that permanent solution for a safe pathway for recognising overseas adoption. That next phase of work on long-term, enduring options will go through a select committee process. We acknowledge that these changes will stop recognition of overseas adoptions that were made with adequate safeguards and were in the best interest of children. We therefore propose to exempt specific countries.

This is a necessary and a timely piece of legislation, so, on behalf of the Minister of Immigration, I commend the bill to the House, and I invite all members to support its swift passage today.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Adoption Amendment Bill in its first reading. This bill is about protecting the most vulnerable children. For far too long, gaps in our adoption laws have allowed overseas adoptions to be recognised here without the safeguards New Zealanders would expect. That has meant some children have been brought into situations of abuse, neglect, and exploitation. This is unacceptable, and I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. I also stand, on behalf of Te Pāti Māori, to make a short call in support of the aim of this bill. We understand that it has been prompted because there have been cases where people with convictions for violence or sexual abuse were able to adopt children overseas and bring them into Aotearoa New Zealand. They have been able to bring them into our country in recognition of the adoption, and in some of those cases, they’ve been able to use that position to offend the children’s mana and tapu. They have created serious abuse, neglect, and exploitation of these children, who are taonga. There are cases that are already approaching or in the courts, and therefore, we acknowledge the immediacy of the legal change that this bill with enact. Based on that alone, Te Pāti Māori will support this bill at first reading. To be honest, we are horrifically shocked that we didn’t have stringent laws in place already. Kia ora rā.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Most overseas adoptions into New Zealand are into loving families, but some children have been brought here by people with violent or abusive histories, and then neglected, abused, or exploited. This bill is intended on addressing that issue. I commend it to the House.

As has been mentioned already by our justice spokesperson, Duncan Webb, we will be supporting this bill, but we do have a lot of questions. Our primary concern with respect to this bill is, of course, the wellbeing and safety of the children; it is making sure that we do have the safeguards in place, that they are protected, that they are not adopted under circumstances where they enter into servitude or they come here and they are abused or they are exploited in some way or another. There have been far too many cases that we have all seen through the media where that has occurred. However, this has come to us in urgency, and we’re going to have a lot of questions that we will be putting to the Minister at the committee of the whole House stage to understand the rationale for some of the decision making behind what really is a temporary piece of legislation.

I—and there may be others in this House—have family members who have adopted from overseas. The instance that I’m calling on is where the country from which they were adopted was also a member or had signed up to the Hague convention; the child protection services were involved on that side as well as in this country; the oversight and safeguards were there. I’ve often wondered why countries have chosen not to sign up with the Hague convention—that is a matter for them, of course, but it has also led me to have concern for the kids that have been adopted from countries where we don’t have those protections and oversight in place. But I’ve also wondered why we couldn’t have those protections and oversights in place regardless of whether or not they come from a country that’s signed up to the Hague convention or not, and I guess that will be something that we can traverse, or at least have a discussion on, later on.

There will be some communities that are really concerned at the pace in which this is coming through. We’ve heard the rationale for that. But there will be some families who will be highly disappointed because they would have started down the pathway of adoption for family members—usually family members—overseas and are going to be hit with this suddenly and now, all of a sudden, will be unable to continue on that pathway. The Minister has said, in her opening remarks, that she is looking to have permanent fixes or legislation in place before the end of the term for this Government. I would hope that would be the case, because, as the months pass by, there will be children in other countries who are awaiting being united with people that are meant to be their new family, and parents, here, waiting for their children but unable to continue along that trajectory because of the urgency and changes that have been pushed through today.

I’m also wanting to know, at a later stage, from the Minister, what consultation has taken place through the ministry of foreign affairs. This is a huge decision to make and there will be clearly some viewpoints and, perhaps, some concern expressed by the countries that have not been exempted in this particular list that’s in the legislation we’ve been presented with.

Finally, we are very curious about the list of countries that will be allowed to continue adoption during this interim period. We assumed that they would be countries that were all aligned with the Hague convention, but that’s not the case; in fact, there are some countries on this list that haven’t signed up to the Hague convention. There are some countries left off this list who have signed up with the Hague convention. So we’re going to want a really good rationale from the Minister, to provide us with assurance that there are good reasons for why countries have been excluded from this list. I think the Minister knows that there will be communities that are wanting that particular answer and wanting assurance that they haven’t been treated unfairly or discriminated against in any way. So the substance of the answer she provides on that particular topic will be very important to the rest of this debate, particularly in the committee of the whole House stage.

As I said earlier, at this point, we do support this legislation. We’re a little bit disappointed at the way in which it was brought here. I know that the Minister did reach out to certain members of political parties, but that was fairly recently. I think this is one of those pieces of legislation that we could have worked in a more bipartisan way if she had reached out earlier; however, that time has passed—and so has the time for my speech.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Adoption Amendment Bill seeks to prevent harm to children and young people who are adopted overseas and brought to New Zealand to live. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As colleagues have said, we will be supporting the bill at this reading.

Colleagues across the House will know that I often push back when urgency is accorded to bills, particularly on all stages. I do think there are valid exceptions to that, and, for me, that is when we see children in a position of potential harm, which is, again, why we’re supporting the bill at this stage. But I would echo the comments made in terms of those conversations that haven’t happened, that could have at the time when this issue was in the media earlier this year, and also the comment that Dr Duncan Webb made, that it appears this could be a blunt tool in terms of addressing the issues in front of us. I acknowledge, as others have, that we have seen some very serious cases, including this year, that of a 13-year-old girl, in April, and a 12-year-old boy, as well, who were found in absolutely appalling situations. I think the reality of the fact is that once they are here, it can be very difficult, when they’re unmonitored, to be able to ensure they are kept safe.

Just going back to the point about the conversations across the House, I do acknowledge that this is, of course, in many ways, a temporary pause. I know, on this side of the House, we would absolutely welcome a longer conversation as those permanent solutions are developed. For the time being, we currently have a system that is split into two, where signatories to the Hague convention have one passage and then we have section 17 under the Citizenship Act, where there is a different passage in terms of adoptions being made. For the time being, that’s going to be split into three, which are those exempted categories, the non-exempted, and the non-exempted with exceptions. There are, indeed, a lot of children who will fall into those three categories: a thousand overseas adoptions recognised in New Zealand every year.

I would also say that it’s good to see the Government acknowledging the issue of children who are at risk in this space, and also good to see that there has been some movement in thinking on the definition of trafficking, which is a connected issue in this space. There is another, in terms of ensuring that we’re protecting children against harm, and that is the broader modern slavery framework that we have had conversations about across the House as well. My view is that, yes, we do have an obligation to children coming to New Zealand, but we also do have that obligation in terms of our supply chains coming into New Zealand, and that is another area that I hope the Government will be turning its mind to.

In terms of the Hague convention and the reason why I think many countries afford it this place of priority and, if you like, trust is that it is a fairly robust regime and it requires countries to put in place specific measures, which we’ve done through domestic legislation as well, that require an entity to oversee and coordinate—which, for us, is Oranga Tamariki—where a number of checks have to be made in terms of those adoptions happening. Interestingly, there are principles like the subsidiarity test, which is a test that says that when an adoption happens under the convention, you must first make sure there isn’t family in the home country that the child could be placed with. There have been some human rights critiques of the extent to which the Hague convention, as it stands now, reflects an adequate human rights position. That might be something for international discussions going forward, but I certainly acknowledge that the Hague convention provisions do provide a robust framework for analysis.

One of the provisions that I’m particularly drawn to is the one that requires accredited agencies to be used in terms of the adoption process and for a number of steps to happen for those agencies to get accreditation. The second is the follow-up for the young people. Unlike the section 17 pathway, under the Hague convention, the Government entity must go back and ensure that that young person is doing well.

I understand the directive. I do look forward to a robust conversation at the committee of the whole House stage, and, beyond that, a conversation once that time period has lapsed and we do need to revert to a longer-term system.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We’re in the first reading of the Adoption Amendment Bill, a bill which temporarily addresses a very dangerous and alarming void in our adoption process, and I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

This bill is set down for second reading immediately.

Second Reading