Adoption Law Reform: Second round of engagement in 2022

On 20 June 2022, the Government asked for the public’s views on the options for reform. As part of this engagement, the Ministry of Justice met with a range of individuals and communities both face-to-face and online.

The second round of engagement closed on 7 August. We’ll use your feedback to inform the development of final policy proposals for adoption law reform. This may include refining, changing or adding to the options set out in the discussion document.

What we heard in the second round of engagement

During the second round of engagement, the Ministry received over 140 written submissions and met with more than 200 people. The Ministry partnered with National Iwi Chairs Forum Pou Tikanga, other government agencies and third-party providers to hold targeted engagement with:

• adopted young people

• people impacted by adoption, including adopted people, birth parents, adoptive parents, and family and whanau

• Māori

• Samoan, Tongan, Tuvaluan and Kiritbati communities in New Zealand.

You can read a summary of what we heard during the second round of engagement in the report, Adoption law reform: Summary of feedback on 2022 engagement. Please note that this is a general summary of the feedback and is not intended to reflect the individual detail of each voice we heard.

Adoption law reform: Summary of feedback on 2022 engagement

Adoption reform - Summary of engagement 2022 [PDF, 499 KB]

2022 Discussion document

You can read about the options for reform the Government was considering in the 2022 discussion document on the links below. The discussion document is translated into five languages, and accessible formats including Easy Read