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Work towards reforming domestic adoption law was undertaken from 2018 to 2023. This programme of work was undertaken as Aotearoa New Zealand's main adoption law, the Adoption Act 1955, no longer meets the needs of our society or reflects modern adoption best practice. The work aimed to create a new system that protects the rights, best interests and welfare of children, upholds our Tiriti o Waitangi obligations, and upholds our international human rights obligations.
Public consultation
The Ministry of Justice completed two rounds of public engagement in 2021 and 2022 to guide the development of proposals for creating a new adoption system.
You can find out more about the engagement and the feedback we received here:
While policy work on domestic law reforms has been paused, the feedback received in both rounds of engagement has informed the development of targeted international adoption law reforms.
Whāngai
The National Iwi Chairs Forum Pou Tikanga, in collaboration with Ināia Tonu Nei(external link), held a Māori-led wānanga on whāngai in August 2022. The wānanga sought Māori views on whether there needs to be changes to the way the law treats whāngai and, if so, what the process for making those changes should look like. The general view at the wānanga was that further work on whāngai should be separate to adoption reform and led by Māori. The Ministry therefore is not progressing work to provide specific legal recognition of whāngai at present.
Surrogacy
Under the current law, intending parents must adopt their surrogate born children through the New Zealand Family Court to legally transfer parentage.
The Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill, which would create two new pathways for recognising legal parentage for surrogate-born children, was reported back from the Health Committee on 31 March 2026 and is awaiting second reading. The Bill incorporates the Law Commission's(external link) recommendations from its 2022 review of surrogacy laws. In its report, Te Kōpū Whāngai: He Arotake | Review of Surrogacy(external link), the Law Commission recommended creating new processes for establishing legal parenthood in surrogacy arrangements.
Current state of New Zealand's adoption laws
New Zealand’s adoption laws are in three pieces of legislation: