Ms Maree Ryan-O'Brien:

I will take the first part, and Mr. O'Brien can handle the legal aspect. As regards scholarships, we feel very strongly that when provision is being made for scholarships or educational supports, these really need to be delivered to the communities that have suffered as a result of these systems. When one reads a report from the children of adoptees, it is very clear how this has impacted on them. It indicates that this trauma dissipates and ripples through generations. Previous speakers spoke about intergenerational poverty. There is no quantifiable research as yet on how this has impacted in an intergenerational sense, but we are certainly getting a view of how this has affected the children of adoptees. This cohort is largely ignored. If it is recommended there will be scholarships, then they will need to be specifically delivered to the communities who need them. The Senator spoke about the wider communities in the context of institutional abuse and the institutions at large. Certainly, these scholarships need to go to the communities. Very often, the underprivileged and those who have come through institutions and mother and baby homes are the same communities that this trauma has rippled through and affected. We need to have those educational supports.

We also need to make the point that both adoptees and survivors should be empowered to be educated on the subject at university. We call on any universities, colleges etc., which have this as an area of study, to provide scholarships to these communities to enable adoptees and survivors to be educators about their own history. It is clear from the report that the larger societal context of this as an issue is understood. We understand the significance of it and we appreciate our own role as custodians of our own history. We need to be able to be empowered doing that as opposed to being muted or, again, treated as objects of study.

I will let Mr. O’Brien take over on the second part, which is oversight. However, we have made a call in the report for a review of legislation. We feel it is important to have oversight as regards the legislation, because of what happened with the previous Act in 1952, which was largely left in abeyance. Apart from amendments, it has never been substantively changed. We, therefore, need a review built into the birth information and tracing Bill 2021, so that there will be a review of legislation, in either two or three years, to see what has worked and what has not, and to amend the legislation accordingly.