Background
The Secretary of the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice applied on behalf of proposed adoptive parents Renée and Gerard Morrel for orders adopting brothers Edmund and Albert Wilmore. The brothers had lived continuously with the Morrels as their foster carers since August 2020, after their father died while the family was visiting Australia and the Children’s Court later placed them under ministerial parental responsibility. Edmund reached 18 before the application was decided; Albert was 14.
Both brothers had received registered adoption counselling, signed instruments consenting to their respective adoptions, and repeatedly expressed a clear wish to become legal members of the Morrel family. Their birth mother, Tina, opposed adoption and preferred the existing care arrangements to continue, principally because she feared losing contact and information about the boys. She filed no evidence contesting the proceedings, however, and the Court determined the application on the papers.
The Court’s Holding
McGrath J ordered that Edmund and Albert be adopted by Renée and Gerard. The Court found that all formal statutory requirements were met and that adoption would promote each brother’s best interests. Because both were over 12 when they gave informed consent, their birth mother’s consent was not required and did not need to be dispensed with. Although the proposed adoptive parents were not both at least 18 years older than Edmund, the Court found it desirable to make his adoption order despite that age requirement.
The Court held that adoption was clearly preferable to every available legal alternative. For Edmund, who was already an adult, parental-responsibility orders were no longer applicable. For Albert, restoration to his birth mother was neither realistically possible nor in his best interests, while continued ministerial care or guardianship would not provide the permanence, security, and legal belonging that adoption offered. The Court gave substantial weight to the brothers’ informed and consistently expressed wishes, their secure relationships with the Morrels, and the stable, nurturing care they had received.
The Court also found Albert’s maternal and paternal adoption plans to be in his best interests and proper in the circumstances. Those plans preserved avenues for contact with birth relatives and supported his British and Australian cultural heritage and Catholic upbringing. The orders retained both brothers’ existing names, directed that parental ages not appear on their adoptive birth certificates, and did not affect their British or Australian citizenship or any existing interests in their deceased father’s estate.
Key Takeaways
- An adoption order must be clearly, not merely marginally, preferable to every other legally available care arrangement.
- A child aged 12 or older who has received the required information and counselling may consent to adoption, making a birth parent’s consent unnecessary under the applicable NSW provisions.
- The Court treated the brothers’ mature, sustained wishes for permanence and legal belonging as carrying greater weight than their birth mother’s opposition.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates how the Supreme Court evaluates adoption as a status-changing and permanent order, particularly where children have developed secure attachments in long-term foster care. Functional stability alone may not be equivalent to adoption when continued state oversight or time-limited guardianship leaves a child with continuing uncertainty.
It also shows that open-adoption arrangements can preserve birth-family contact and cultural identity while giving legal effect to an established parent-child relationship. The assessment remains individualized: the Court separately considered each brother’s age, legal position, wishes, family relationships, and available alternatives.