COMMITTEE
Fiona Donoghue – Co-convenor
Susan Atkin – Co-convenor
Poppy Donoghue – Secretary
Rebecca Tyler – Treasurer
Emeritus Professor Bill Atkin
Dr Anne Else
Charlotte von Dadelszen
Lance Lukin
Dr Maria Haenga-Collins
Jo Woods
The 2024/2025 Wellington Community Justice Project Law Reform leader:
Emily Groen
OUR PEOPLE
Fiona Donoghue
Fiona Donoghue is a founding member of Adoption Action, incorporated in 2010. In 2005, she was instrumental in establishing Wellington-based support for adopted people and online support for other people impacted by adoption. She has since been active in adoption law reform, including contributing to Adoption Action’s Human Rights Commission claim (2013) and submissions to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care and the Ministry of Justice’s adoption law reform project (2021 and 2022). She is an Adoption Action liaison with the Wellington Community Justice Project law reform group.
As an adopted person, Fiona brings lived experience and is committed to promoting openness, truth, the right to retain one’s identity (and whakapapa) from birth, and supporting those navigating adoption’s lifelong and intergenerational impacts.
Susan Atkin
Susan is an adopted person and has been involved with Adoption Action since its inception. In 1999 Susan began her adoption support work holding meetings for adopted people and encouraging them to make submissions to the Law Commission’s 2000 review of the Adoption Act 1955. Since then Susan has continued supporting Aotearoa New Zealand’s adoption communities and most recently made submissions to the public consultation processes of the Royal Commission Inquiry into Abuse in Care and the Ministry of Justice’s adoption law reform project (2021 and 2022). Susan has worked for government agencies and NGOs during her career in policy, research and evaluation.
Bill Atkin BA LLM (VUW)
Bill is a Professor Emeritus of Law at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington and a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand. Now retired, he has taught many subjects including family law and torts, and supervised many student projects from Honours to PhD levels. He was General Editor of the annual International Survey of Family Law for 10 years until 2016, and in 2018 published the 3rd edition of Relationship Property in New Zealand. He has written many articles and book chapters, including on adoption and child law. He is responsible for several chapters in the LexisNexis Family Law Service. He chaired the Adoption Practices Review Committee that reported in 1990 to Michael Cullen, Minister of Social Welfare, and the Ministerial Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technologies (report 1994). He is on the Advisory Panel for the Family Law Section of the New Zealand Law Society. He was on the Expert Reference Group for the Independent Panel that in 2019 advised the Minister of Justice on the 2014 reforms to the family justice system. He was on the Expert Advisory Group for the Law Commission’s project on relationship property, which delivered its final report in 2019. He has often made submissions to Parliament and government agencies.
Dr Anne Else
Dr Anne Else, MNZM, was adopted at birth in Auckland in 1945, and found her birth mother in 1984. She is an independent researcher and author based in Wellington. Her wide range of locally and internationally published work over the last 45 years includes many focusing on adoption, as well as state care and assisted reproductive technology. In 2021–22 she gave presentations to both the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care and the teams undertaking major reviews of adoption and surrogacy law. Her first book on adoption in New Zealand from 1944 to 1974, published in 1991, became the standard reference on this topic. Her latest publication, an e-book written with Dr Maria Haenga-Collins, includes both a digitised version of that 1991 book, and seven new chapters updating the history of adoption and related topics.
Charlotte von Dadelszen
Charlotte has been involved with Adoption Action since 2011. She is a partner at Buddle Findlay, specialising in construction and property law (Charlotte von Dadelszen | Buddle Findlay). Before that, Charlotte spent six years in London working for the Disability Law Service, a national charity providing legal advice and advocacy services to people and parents of children with disabilities. Charlotte and her partner have three children and had to navigate the family court system to put in place parenting and guardianship orders. She was closely involved in Adoption Action’s Human Rights Commission claim brought in 2013.