Abbott calls for more local adoptions

Former prime minister Tony Abbott has warned bureaucrats are putting the rights of dysfunctional parents ahead of the welfare of at-risk children.

Mr Abbott has made the case for more local adoptions in an opinion piece for The Australian on Friday, pointing out last year there were only 200 while 40,000 children were in care.

"Parents shouldn't have their kids stolen through misguided policy; but children shouldn't have their childhood stolen either, through policy no less wrongheaded," he wrote.

Mr Abbott strongly criticised a belief that children should always be kept with their biological parents.

That ideology was "plainly putting hundreds, if not thousands, of Australian children at extreme risk".

He cited recent reports of an autistic teenager being chained to his bed so his mother could go shopping.