Adoption, to me, is a double-edged sword. Back in the 1960s and earlier, if a child was born out of wedlock, there was great societal pressure for the child to be given up, even if the mother would have made a good mother and the circumstances of the adoption were painful to both.

On the other side of the coin, I say if the child is unwanted and the mother wants to give the child up for adoption, and the child is adopted by loving parents, that's great.

I would like to mention two examples. I knew a man who was conceived as the result of a one night stand between a Greek-American serviceman and an Australian woman, and he either shot through or was transferred out of Brisbane, Queensland, and his mother knew a Swedish-Finnish man married to an Englishwoman, who were childless and they adopted him. He had a good life and the man didn't meet his biological mother until she was dying in hospital. She asked what took him so long and he said, "Well, you knew where I was."

I knew another man, who was born in 1966, who was adopted by a couple. The woman who adopted him had a father who was a police officer, and arranged for it that way, but she was a flighty sort of a person. She was married to a man who was hearing impaired, and was away a lot. He didn't know he had a child until he came home from working out west as a shearer and there was a baby in the house. The adopted man would often go for days without contact with his mother and he described lighting a candle and trying to heat a tin of baked beans so he and his adopted sister could have something to eat.

I believe that a child who is adopted should be told that they're adopted from the time they can understand. I remember, when I was in Year One, our teacher telling us that there was a boy in the class whose mum wanted a baby, and so did his dad, and they adopted him. I had gone to kindergarten with this kid and he was unfortunate to have so many allergies. I remember, when I was in Year Two, he and another boy were sent outside, and he urinated on the steps to the classroom. My teacher said that if she was his mother, she would have pulled his pants down and smacked his backside. When I told about this, ten years later, she told me that his adopted mum was quite good to him, and it's true, she was. I remember our class went on an excursion to a dairy farm, and his mother had to come along, in case he developed an allergic reaction to something. His mum was a lovely lady.

I think it's extremely important that parents of an adopted child are carefully assessed to ensure their suitability.