rightsED Bringing them home

8. The laws
Tasmania
Decade Laws applying specifically to General child welfare laws/adoption
Aboriginal children laws

1890s The Prevention of Cruelty to and

Better Protection of Children Act
1895
Repealed by Infants’ Welfare Act
1935

Youthful Offenders, Destitute and

Neglected Children’s Act 1896
Repealed by The Children of the
State Act 1918

1900s Infant Life Protection Act 1907

Repealed by The Children of the
State Act 1918

1910s Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1912 The Children of the State Act 1918
An Act ‘to provide for the subdivision of Repealed by Infants’ Welfare Act
the Cape Barren Island reserve and for 1935
occupation of portion thereof by the
descendants of Aboriginal natives’.
Key provisions
Secretary for Lands responsible for
promoting welfare and well-being of
residents of the reserve. Cape Barren
Island reserve, which was created in
1881, to be subdivided into homestead
and agricultural blocks. Persons named
in schedule and their widows and
descendants may make application for
licences to occupy land free of rent.
Residents required to reside
continuously in their houses for six
months each year. Licences may be
bequeathed to widow or descendants
but if widow who is a licensee marries
‘a white man’ all her rights to the licence
cease. Persons over 21 years who are
not licensed occupiers or lessees may
be removed from reserve. ‘In order to
encourage the settlement of the half-
castes in other parts of Tasmania
outside the Reserve’ an applicant may
be granted a licence to occupy Crown
land elsewhere in Tasmania.
Regulations may be made for the
control of residents upon the reserve.

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rightsED Bringing them home

Decade Laws applying specifically to General child welfare laws/adoption

Aboriginal children laws

Repealed by Cape Barren Island

Reserve Act 1945

Adoption of Children Act 1920

Provided for the legal adoption of
children under the age of 17 years for
the first time in Tasmania. Police
Magistrates given the power to make
an adoption order but the Registrar-
General may also exercise the power.
The written consent of parents or legal
guardian required unless the child is a
child of the State or a ‘deserted child’.
A deserted child is ‘any child who, in
the opinion of a police Magistrate, is
deserted and has ceased to be cared
for and maintained by its parents or by
such one of them as is living’.
Amended by
Adoption of Children Act 1941 – age
of a ‘child’ for adoption raised to 21
years.

1940s Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1945

Islanders required to develop and
cultivate land on Cape Barren Island
within the following five years or it
reverts to the Crown.
Key provisions
Surveyor-General to ‘manage and
regulate the use and enjoyment of the
Reserve’ and ‘exercise a general
supervision and care over all matters
affecting the interests and welfare of the
residents of the Reserve’. Leases to
contain covenants that lessor will make
substantial improvements to the land,
fence and cultivate the land and that his
wife and family will reside on it for at
least nine months per year. Lessee may
bequeath lease to a member of his
family, which comprises only his wife
and children, living on the reserve at the
time of death. Any person over the age
of 21 who is not a lessee, or the son of
a lessee who is permanently employed
by and receiving wages from a lessee,
may be removed from the reserve.
Regulations may be made for the
peace, order and good government of
the reserve.

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rightsED Bringing them home

Decade Laws applying specifically to General child welfare laws/adoption

Aboriginal children laws

Expired 1951

After 1935, Aboriginal children were taken from Cape Barren Island and surrounding islands
under the Infants Welfare Act 1935 and subsequent child welfare legislation.

1930s Infants Welfare Act 1935

‘An Act to consolidate and amend the Law relating to Welfare of Children and the
Protection of Infant Life’.
Definitions
child – any boy or girl under the age of 17 years
child of the State – a convicted or neglected child or any other child received into
or committed to an institution or to the care of the Social Services Department
neglected child – includes a child who associates with a thief or a drunkard; who
begs in a public place; who is not provided with the necessary food, nursing,
clothing, medical aid and lodging or is neglected, ill-treated, or exposed by one
or both of his parents; who is an habitual truant; who is found by a children’s
court to be uncontrollable, who is illegitimate and whose mother is dead or
unable to take charge of him/her; whose home, ‘by reason of the neglect, cruelty,
or depravity’ of either of his parents, is an unfit place for a child
Key provisions
A child may be apprehended as neglected and detained in a receiving home or
other specified place to be taken before a children’s court. The court may commit
a neglected or uncontrollable child to the care of the Social Services Department
or to an institution. Where a child is charged with being neglected or
uncontrollable, the parents have a right to be heard, but if the parents do not
appear the court can hear the matter without them. A child may also be admitted
to the care of the director on the application of his/her parent or near relative or
any person of good repute to be dealt with in the same way as a neglected or
uncontrollable child. The Director of Social Services is the guardian of every
child of the State and may place a child in a receiving home or in an institution;
board-out, apprentice or place the child in service; or place the child in the
custody of a suitable person. An offence to wilfully ill-treat, neglect, abandon or
expose a child; communicate with a child in an institution; or, being a near
relative liable to maintain a child, to desert the child or leave the child without
adequate means of support.
Repealed by Child Welfare Act 1960

1940s Domestic Assistance Services Act 1947

Established a domestic assistance service to assist in homes where the mother
is unable to undertake ‘ordinary domestic duties by reason of pregnancy or
maternity, or by reason of accident, sickness or infirmity of any kind’ or where the
lack of domestic assistance service in the home is a cause of hardship’

1960s Child Welfare Act 1960

Replaced the 1935 Act. Under this Act honorary child welfare officers may be
appointed. In 1966 there was an honorary child welfare officer appointed on
Flinders Island.
Definitions

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neglected – similarly defined to 1935 Act. In practice the only grounds now used
are that the child’s parents or guardians are ‘unfit to exercise care or
guardianship’ or are not exercising it and the child is in need of care or
protection, in order to secure that he/she is properly cared for or that he/she is
prevented from falling into ‘bad associations or from being exposed to moral
danger’; or the child is ‘beyond the control of parents or guardians with whom he
is living’. Proper care and guardianship deemed not to be exercised if the child is
not provided with necessary food, lodging, clothing, medical aid or nursing or the
child is neglected, ill-treated or exposed by a parent or guardian
Key provisions
Children’s court may declare a child found to be neglected, or brought before it
‘on the application of a parent, guardian or relative of the child or a person of
good repute having the care and custody of the child’, to be a ward or make a
supervision order which requires the child to be under the supervision of a child
welfare officer or probation officer.
Amended by
Child Welfare Act 1963 – deleted the power of a ‘person of good repute’ to apply
for a child to be made a ward.

Adoption of Children Act 1968

Consolidated and amended the previous laws relating to adoption. The
Registrar-General may no longer exercise the powers of a police Magistrate in
relation to adoption. Before an adoption order is made a report must be made
regarding the proposed adoption by the Department of Social Welfare or an
approved private adoption agency. The welfare and interests of the child must be
served by the adoption. The only agency approved under this Act was the
Catholic Private Adoption Agency.
Repealed by Adoption of Children Act 1988

1970s Child Protection Act 1974

Where it appears to a court that a child under 12 years may have suffered injury
as a result of cruel treatment the Magistrate may order that the child be taken to
a ‘place of safety’ for up to 30 days. Application may be heard ex parte. Where a
court is satisfied that the child has also suffered injury through ill treatment the
magistrate may declare the child to be a ward of the State.

1980s Adoption of Children Act 1988

Replaced 1968 Act. Includes provisions enabling adult adoptees to obtain
information about themselves.

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