Labor and foster carers said abolishing the payment would be a disincentive for adoption, and this week Ms Goward appeared to agree, saying the change should lead to "hundreds" of adoptions next year.

Standing beside the Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Wednesday, Ms Goward said "We want to get rid of any financial disincentive to a family to adopt. Adoption shouldn't be for the privileged, it should not be something that is just available to high or middle-income professional families."

But in 2011, when Ms Goward previously held the same portfolio under Premier Barry O'Farrell, she scrapped the allowance for foster carers who adopt, and was dismissive of Labor's achievement in doubling adoptions from 22 to 48 after introducing the allowance in 2008.

"That appalling number reflects the fact that Labor has never understood that the answer is not just to throw money at a program," she told parliament at the time.

In 2016 there were just 68 adoptions; but there have been 77 so far this financial year.

The September 2011 budget saw a $16,000 annual allowance for carers who adopt reduced to $1500 from mid-2012. Before that, the post-adoption allowance was the same as the foster parent allowance.

David, a carer whose surname cannot be published because he is in the process of adopting his foster child, said it was good that the payment was back, but "I object to the Minister saying she has removed a barrier to adoption when she is the very person who created the financial barrier. It was part of the 2011 budget cuts."

Labor's Community Services spokeswoman Tania Mihailuk said: "It's extraordinarily hypocritical of this minister. Really this is just a token gesture, when in reality she was the minister responsible for cutting this allowance and for record cuts in the FaCS budget."

Ms Goward did not address the claims of hypocrisy, saying the payment was just one part of a wider package "that will see a complete shift in how government responds to vulnerable families."

"We have listened to carers and we recognise that for some carers, the current $1500 a year allowance just does not cut it. It is for that reason we will be introducing the means tested allowance for Family Tax Benefit Part A from July 1 this year," she said.

The new policy is for a means-tested post-adoption allowance of up to $19,188 a year for teenagers. Carers adopting children with special needs would receive a maximum of $37,896 a year.

Adoption numbers remain a tiny proportion of the 18,659 children in out of home care and a further 2486 on guardianship orders, according to the most recent FaCS Annual Report.

Adoption is an emotionally charged policy, with high-profile advocacy group Adopt Change and the government keen to promote more adoptions as part of a solution to the state's growing child protection problem.

However adult adoptee groups and some parents whose children have been taken into state care say that legally severing the rights of the birth parents to their children is not in their best interests.