Royal Commission Into Adoption
Adoptee Rights Australia is calling for a Royal Commission into adoption in Australia.
For decades, adoptees and families across Australia have spoken about the lifelong impacts of adoption, including identity loss, trauma, secrecy, falsification of records, barriers to information access, and ongoing psychological and intergenerational harm. Despite previous inquiries and reviews, many adoptees continue to experience significant failures within adoption systems and legislation today.
Adoption is not a single moment in time — it is a lifelong legal and social process that affects identity, family, belonging, and wellbeing across generations.
A Royal Commission is the highest form of public inquiry available in Australia. It has the power to compel evidence, examine institutional conduct, hear lived experience, and investigate systemic failures across jurisdictions and time periods. A Royal Commission into adoption would provide an opportunity for truth-telling, accountability, and meaningful reform.
ARA believes that adoptees must be at the centre of these conversations.
This page outlines why a Royal Commission is needed, what reforms ARA is seeking, and how our community and supporters can become involved in this important advocacy.
Write to Your Local MP: Help Call for a Royal Commission into Adoption
One of the most powerful things our adoption community can do right now is contact local Members of Parliament and ask them to support a Royal Commission into adoption in Australia. MPs pay attention when constituents contact them directly - especially when multiple...
Urgent Call for a Royal Commission into Adoption and its lifelong impacts on Adoptees
Calling for a Royal Commission in Australia is not a procedural application - it is a political and strategic advocacy process. A Royal Commission is formally established by the Governor-General (or a state Governor), but only on the advice of government. In practice,...
ARA continues to call for a Royal Commission into adoption itself – past and present
The deep and ongoing harm to adopted people from adoption and adoption practices has never been investigated or examined on a national scale in Australia. The 2011-2012 Senate Inquiry into Forced Adoption was an inquiry into removal and trafficking practices only....
A Royal Commission into adoption itself – A National Reckoning is long overdue!
Today marks the 12th Anniversary of the National Apology for Forced Adoptions. 🎥 You can view a recording of the Apology HERE📄And download the words of the Apology HERE The apology was one of 20 Recommendations made by the Senate Committee on Community Affairs Only a...
Victorian Inquiry – Many Recommendations Long Overdue – More Needed for Adoptees
President of Adoptee Rights Australia (ARA) Inc., Peter Capomolla Moore, says: “ARA welcomes many of the 56 recommendations of the Victorian Inquiry into responses to historical forced adoption in Victoria and we thank the Committee and Secretariat for the empathetic...