• Community Services (retired), Standard 20/05/2013

CODE 1 Consent from birth mother only (birth father's consent dispensed/not required)

A child is legally available for adoption if all the necessary consents to the child’s adoption have been obtained or dispensed with.

Consent for local adoptions is usually required from both birth parents. Therefore, dispensation of consent is usually only provided by the relevant court in each state/territory when the birth parent(s) are unable to give consent themselves.

Dispensation is a legal process by which a court may declare that the consent of a parent is not required for an adoption order to be granted. Grounds for dispensation applications are set under individual state and territory legislation. In some jurisdictions, where the birth father's identity is unknown, his consent is not required and so it is not necessary to dispense with his consent. In these cases, consent is only required from the birth mother, and there is no dispensation of the birth father's consent.

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare