Critical Analysis Of White Adoption

The Daily Telegraph newspaper article titled, ‘white adoptions won’t create stolen generations’ appeared on 15th March 2018 written by Jeremy Sammut, who is a senior research fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies and author of The Madness of Australian Child Protection, is a persuasive media article which encourages readers to think in conformity with the writer regarding the adoption of indigenous children by non-indigenous families. The article structured with evidence and reasons evokes empathy and sense of fairness among readers towards the aboriginal children who are living in culturally appropriate places under the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle (ACPP) embedded in state legislation. The critical analysis of this media in

The media article related to the adoption of indigenous children by non-indigenous families is an opinion of the writer which raises concerns over the inadequacy of ACPP in aboriginal child welfare. From the beginning of the article, the writer rejects the criticisms against the Federal children’s Minister David Gillespie being ‘racist critic of indigenous parenting’ by taking a one-sided stance on the issue that the minister is right and the only way to protect Aboriginal children from abuses and recycling them back to harm is to promote more white adoptions. To support the contentions of the writer, the statistics of an increased rate of aboriginal children in out-of-home care from 2000 to 2017 are used to depict worsening dysfunction in Aboriginal families. The writer also highlights the drawbacks of ACPP embedded in legislation which is obsessed with matching indigenous children with indigenous families due to insufficient safe and permanent homes to accommodate indigenous children who need to be rescued. The alleged rape of a two-year-old girl in the notorious town camp outside Tennant Creek, Northern Territory living in kinship care of relatives

The principle aims to maintain and enhance the aboriginal children’s connection with their families. This principle is often understood as the placement hierarchy, which acts as a guide in placing aboriginal children in care (Arney, Iannos, Chong, McDougall & Parkinson, 2015). According to the principle embedded in NSW Adoption Act (2000), the hierarchy in placing aboriginal children in care begins with family and kin networks, then with the non-related carers in the same community, then with the carers in another aboriginal community and finally, adoption by non-indigenous carers only as a last resort. Generally, the principle aims at recognition and protection of the rights and self-determination of the indigenous children, family members and their communities in the child welfare matters which was not present in the customary aboriginal child care arrangements (Arney et al., 2015) and minimising over-representation of aboriginal children in the child protection