Adoption Amendment Bill
This bill makes temporary changes to the rules about adopting children from overseas. Right now, people with criminal records or histories of abusing children can adopt kids overseas and bring them to New Zealand, because New Zealand simply accepts whatever the overseas country decided. This bill temporarily stops children adopted overseas — in countries without strong enough safeguards — from automatically getting New Zealand citizenship or a visa. These changes last until mid-2027 at the latest, then the old rules come back, unless a permanent fix is passed before then.
What this affects
Tap a topic to see how this bill touches it — with the parts of the text it’s based on.
Children adopted overseas by New Zealanders will temporarily be unable to get a New Zealand visa through that adoption, unless the adoption happened in a country on an approved list.
the adopted person cannot, as a result of the adoption, be granted— (i) a visa under the Immigration Act 2009; or (ii) entry permission under the Immigration Act 2009
Those restrictions do not, however, affect the discretion of... the Minister of Immigration under the Immigration Act 2009
Progress through Parliament
Have your say
Submissions open once a bill reaches the select committee stage. In the meantime, you can write to your local MP about it.
Write to your MPBill text sourced from legislation.govt.nz (Parliamentary Counsel Office). Arapono’s summary and breakdown are drafted with AI grounded in that official text and reviewed by an Arapono editor for accuracy and neutrality before publishing. Arapono is non-partisan and takes no position on this bill.