National Agreement on Inter-Country Adoption

Following the release of a report on inter-country adoption by the Government in April 2014, the Australian State and Territory governments have reached agreement about a uniform process for inter-country adoption. The agreement reached will make it simpler for Australian couples to adopt children from overseas, and will reportely be operational by 2015.

Australia has also reached an agreement with South Africa that will make it easier for eligible Australian families to adopt children from South Africa, where those children cannot be placed with South African families. This will hopefully obviate the need to Australian couples to enter into potentially risky overseas commerical surrogacy agreements.