Unfortunately they can -- under the Australian Constitution the federal government has power to legislate for all immigration matters, meaning that even if the States and Territories allow same-sex adoptions overseas, it's worthless because the adopted child won't be granted a visa. Think of Dr. Haneef -- the hospital he worked at kept his job open and said that he was welcome back, but because the immigration minister cancelled his visa that job offer is worthless to him.

(Did you ever vote for the Coalition? :P)

You can blame elections for:
-- NT intervention
-- Dr. Haneef visa cancellation
-- Mersey hospital pork-barrelling
-- Union bashing
-- Tampa
-- Children overboard
and the list goes on and on and on.

Anyway, so far polls still have Rudd as preferred PM and the Labor party comfortably ahead, however they need to win at least 12 seats to win parliament in November, and right now WA is still the only state to still prefer Howard and the Coalition because AWAs are all nice and good when you're having a mining boom. In other words, your vote is going to be more crucial :P

.........I have spent too long in Canberra immersed in politics T_T

If you want the Coalition out, make sure you vote for Labor in the lower house because you'd be wasting your vote on a third party like the Democrats or Greens. The minor parties don't have any chance at winning government, so the only alternative to the Coalition is Labor. Keep the Greens vote for the Senate to keep whoever's in government in check, not like the current situation where the Coalition holds the majority in both houses -- which, I reiterate, was the STUPIDEST THING THE AUSTRALIAN POPULACE HAS DONE IN YEARS because anyone with any sense of politics knows you DON'T give the same party power in both houses because that lets the government pass whatever legislation they want without any real challenge without checks -- see WorkChoices as the most obvious example.

WA is virtually a separate country as far as the rest of Australia is concerned -- believe me, every time I tell people over this end that I'm from Perth the reaction is all, "Wow! So far away! I've never been to Perth!" Almost everyone in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra have visited all the other capital cities, even Hobart for chrissakes, but no, not Perth. Perth and WA are virtually ignored except when there's a mining boom on that gets the national economy buzzing or the WC Eagles win the footy grand final. On the flip-side, yes, Perth has a puffed up sense of importance, thinking it's bigger and more important than it really is compared to Sydney and Melbourne which yes, do hold Australia's top rankings in education, culture, business and economy. Perth is growing thanks to the boom, but people back home are sadly mistaken if they think it can stand equal with Sydney and Melbourne.