In addition to the literature surveyed in the review article and the references provided by each of the authors, further sources are provided here. This selection might appear idiosyncratic for international readers given its Australian focus but it has been made because the sources (not likely to be widely known outside Australia) provide current, rich and unique ethnographic data on the complex politics of intercountry adoption in a receiving country and of past practices in domestic adoption, both of which have implications for current policy and practice.

These sources – written submissions and verbal testimonies received by two Australian parliamentary inquiries – highlight the dynamic interplay between social policy and society – with groups and individuals seeking to influence the direction of future policy, while others seek acknowledgement and redress of the injustices done to them (and their children) under past policy and practice. They also provide insight into what might be seen – for example by those in the United Kingdom and the United States – as a very different national consciousness on both domestic and intercountry adoption in Australia from those that prevail elsewhere. As a reading of the sources listed below reveals, this consciousness is coloured by what may be termed the ‘long shadow’ of the history of Indigenous (and other) child removal in the settle-colonial context of Australia. This context tends to lead to greater emphasis now being placed on the damage of separation and removal than on any benefits which may flow from child placement.

In 2005, a standing committee of the Australian House of Representatives conducted an inquiry into intercountry adoption in Australia (Standing Committee on Family and Human Services, 2005). In the conduct of this inquiry, 274 written submissions were received and at a series of public hearings around the nation, scores of testimonies were received, all of which are available online. The full texts of submissions, testimonies and deliberations at public hearings and the final report of the committee are as follows:

In complex circumstances which relate to similar inquiries followed by national apologies in 2008 and 2009 (Rudd, Reference Rudd2008, Reference Rudd2009) to three different groups of removed children – the Indigenous Stolen Generations, children removed from families and institutionalised, and forced imperial child migrants (Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, 1997; Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, 2009; Cuthbert and Quartly forthcoming Reference Cuthbert and Quartly2012) – the Australian Senate's Community Affairs Reference Committee established an inquiry into the role of the Commonwealth government with respect to past practices of forced adoption in Australia in 2011. The inquiry has been overwhelmed with written submissions which now total 400 (with additional supplementary material provided by many, responses from government departments and other agencies to submissions received and questions on notice from the committee). Initially due to report in late 2011, the final reporting date for the inquiry was deferred and the final report of the enquiry was tabled in the Senate on 28 February 2012.

Full texts of submissions received and supplementary material in the form of transcriptions of ten public hearings in major metropolitan centres and the full text of the final report are available as follows: