Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker
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Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's
Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Thursday, June thirteenth.
Speaker 1: The Greens and pro Climate Senate crossbenches are vowing to
Speaker 1: block any attempt by a future coalition government to weaken
Speaker 1: Australia's emissions reduction targets. That's after Peter Dutton said he'd
Speaker 1: slow down Australia's energy transition in the short term. Police
Speaker 1: involved in the flawed initial investigation into the disappearance of
Speaker 1: mother of two Bromwin Winfield put surveillance on a clairvoyant,
Speaker 1: but not on her estranged husband. A local fortune teller
Speaker 1: and tarot card reader, was the only person regarded with
Speaker 1: suspicion by investigators immediately after Bromwin vanished in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: That's the new revelation in episode five of our podcast Bronwyn,
Speaker 1: available now at Bronwyn podcast dot com. Immigration Minister Andrew
Speaker 1: Giles has fought all the way to the Federal Court
Speaker 1: to prevent a Chinese born young woman becoming an Australian
Speaker 1: citizen today why the minister at the center of a
Speaker 1: scandal about allowing criminals to stay in Australia says this
Speaker 1: young woman is not entitled to citizenship. N G Sue
Speaker 1: was born in China in two thousand and one, the
Speaker 1: daughter of a fifteen year old mother. After a long
Speaker 1: and difficult labour ending in an emergency cesarean, the baby
Speaker 1: was abandoned by her mum. Angie was born with significant
Speaker 1: brain hemorrhaging and she was diagnosed as having suffered brain
Speaker 1: damage because of a lack of oxygen during delivery. She
Speaker 1: had three lumps on her head and was suffering seizures.
Speaker 1: Shortly after birth, an Australian woman happened to be working
Speaker 1: in the village and heard about the baby's situation. Alexandra
Speaker 1: Jagleman was working as medical director of a local charity
Speaker 1: running a clinic for pregnant women and children. She had
Speaker 1: met the baby's mother a few months earlier, conducting a
Speaker 1: pre natal check about halfway through her pregnancy. Here's how
Speaker 1: Alexandra Jagleman described what happened next. We've used a voice
Speaker 1: actor to bring you her words from a statement to court.
Speaker 2: The doctors at the hospital told the birth parents that
Speaker 2: the baby would not be normal and would never speak.
Speaker 2: My colleague was contacted and was asked by the birth
Speaker 2: family if I, as the medical director for the NGO
Speaker 2: whom they'd met at the village clinic, could confirm that
Speaker 2: the baby had problems so that they could decapitate it.
Speaker 1: The baby's community are Lahu, a hill tribe living mainly
Speaker 1: in Yunnan Province in China's southeast, close to the border
Speaker 1: with Thailand. They practice a faith called animism, a belief
Speaker 1: that spirituality is in all of nature, that plants and
Speaker 1: animals have souls. One of their beliefs, according to Jaglemen,
Speaker 1: was that children with disabilities were cursed. Jagleman was standing
Speaker 1: in a street with her three children walking home from
Speaker 1: work when her colleague told her the birth family had
Speaker 1: asked if she could assess the baby.
Speaker 2: I immediately agreed to help. However, I told him it
Speaker 2: can be very difficult to know the extent of brain
Speaker 2: damage in a newborn, and if I do find there
Speaker 2: are any signs of brain damage, I would not allow
Speaker 2: them to.
Speaker 1: Get kill the baby.
Speaker 2: I would take the baby, no matter the problem. Upon
Speaker 2: hearing the threat to the baby's life. I immediately decided
Speaker 2: I would raise her as my own daughter, no matter
Speaker 2: the disabilities, in order to save her life.
Speaker 1: She arrived at the hospital and saw the baby's desperate situation.
Speaker 1: She was having constant seizures and had not been fed
Speaker 1: since birth. I spoke with the birth parents and confirmed
Speaker 1: what the pediatrician had said that it was very likely
Speaker 1: that the baby had some brain damage, although it was
Speaker 1: impossible to say what the extent would be. The birth
Speaker 1: parents immediately turned around and walked out of the hospital.
Speaker 2: The pediatrician asked if I would take responsibility for the baby.
Speaker 2: I said yes, I'll raise the baby and be her mother.
Speaker 2: I told her I'd pay for all the medical expenses,
Speaker 2: including the emergency cesarean section for the birth mother and
Speaker 2: all medical expenses. I then asked for a bottle of
Speaker 2: milk formula and proceeded to sit on the hospital bed
Speaker 2: and successfully fed her despite her abnormal reflexes. I gave
Speaker 2: her the name Hope.
Speaker 1: To her word, Alexandra J. Goleman became the baby's mother,
Speaker 1: giving the child her first bottle. Baby Angie had a
Speaker 1: remarkable recovery.
Speaker 3: To say, things looked bleak early in Angie's life is
Speaker 3: certainly an understatement.
Speaker 1: Paul Garvey is the Australian's West Australia Bureau chief.
Speaker 3: So after that start, here we are more than twenty
Speaker 3: years later, and Angie, he also goes by the name
Speaker 3: of Hope, is a thriving, virbrant young woman, no lingering
Speaker 3: ill effects from those horrific brain injuries sustained during her birth.
Speaker 3: In many different senses, a miraculous story here. She's alive
Speaker 3: and well. The only issue is her citizenship.
Speaker 1: He's spent months recently deeply reporting some of the curliest
Speaker 1: cases that come before Australia's courts and tribunals relating to immigration,
Speaker 1: visas and citizenship.
Speaker 3: It's quite startling. So I have been living and breathing
Speaker 3: various court decisions in this immigration space now for the
Speaker 3: past few weeks. I've literally been reading these decisions in
Speaker 3: my sleep. I have dreams where I'm reading more direction
Speaker 3: A nine decisions. And then to come across this Federal
Speaker 3: Court decision finding that this girl born in these incredibly
Speaker 3: difficult circumstances, taken in, supported and raised by this for
Speaker 3: all intents and purposes, is this wonderful woman who's dedicated
Speaker 3: her life to helping these disadvantaged people. To see that's
Speaker 3: then challenged by the government, by the Immigration Minister, to
Speaker 3: have her citizenship opposed in this sort of way really
Speaker 3: is quite jarring when you see the extents that have
Speaker 3: been taken from a legislative perspective to make it less
Speaker 3: likely for convicted criminals to be deported through Direction A nine.
Speaker 3: To then see the same minister who introduced those easier
Speaker 3: set of conditions for those convicted criminals to then turn
Speaker 3: around and challenge and fights the citizenship for this young
Speaker 3: woman who has been raised in this Australian family life.
Speaker 3: It's quite disturbing to see.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty three the Federal government declined n GSU's
Speaker 1: application for citizenship.
Speaker 4: So this falls to a question of law.
Speaker 3: Around when someone is entitled to claim Australian citizenship by descent.
Speaker 3: So under the law, if your parent at the time
Speaker 3: of your birth is an Australian citizen, then you basically
Speaker 3: will receive Australian citizenship. This case is a lot more
Speaker 3: complicated than that though, because at the very moment when
Speaker 3: this child came out of the womb and was born
Speaker 3: her biological parents, this fifteen year old girl and her partner.
Speaker 3: They were not Australian citizens. Now, Alexander Jagelman, she was
Speaker 3: certainly an Australian, but at that precise moment when this
Speaker 3: child was born, she was not that child's mother.
Speaker 4: So what the.
Speaker 3: Lawyers have been fighting over in the Ministry of Appeals
Speaker 3: Tribunal and then the Federal Court is at what point
Speaker 3: those definitions of a child being born actually take effect.
Speaker 3: If it is that simple moment of leaving the worm,
Speaker 3: or if it's something more complex and nuanced, which is
Speaker 3: what the AAT found that the moment that this child
Speaker 3: was known to have a brain injury was effectively the
Speaker 3: point at which Jagleman became her mother. So that's the
Speaker 3: legal point that this case hinges on.
Speaker 1: She went to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and argued Alexandra
Speaker 1: Jagleman was her mother, that because she'd been involved in
Speaker 1: the pregnancy and had given the baby her first food,
Speaker 1: she was the equivalent of a biological parent, and the
Speaker 1: Administrative Appeals Tribunal agreed, and.
Speaker 3: The Federal Court came in with a much stricter interpretation
Speaker 3: on that overturned the AAT decision and found that at
Speaker 3: the point of birth. This child's parents were indeed the
Speaker 3: biological parents who were not Australian citizens.
Speaker 1: Yep. The Minister, Andrew Giles, appealed the tribunal's decision to
Speaker 1: the Federal Court of Australia. Here's what the Minister's lawyers
Speaker 1: argued on behalf of the Commonwealth. They're being read by
Speaker 1: a voice actor.
Speaker 5: The Tribunal ought to have construed the phrase at the
Speaker 5: time of the birth as meeting the precise moment in
Speaker 5: time on the particular day that a child is born,
Speaker 5: and the facts, as found by the Tribunal fell necessarily
Speaker 5: outside the description of at the time of Miss Sue's birth.
Speaker 1: Enji's lawyers said at the time of birth that phrase
Speaker 1: could apply to the first few days of a baby's life.
Speaker 1: In a judgment handed down on June five, the justices
Speaker 1: throughout the Aat's ruling and held up the decision made
Speaker 1: by Giles to refuse Enji's citizenship. In their judgment, they wrote,
Speaker 1: the time of birth of a child is not a
Speaker 1: period of indefinite duration.
Speaker 4: In its ordinary meaning, the phrase denotes the point in
Speaker 4: time from which a baby exists or starts life outside
Speaker 4: of his or her birth mother's body.
Speaker 1: They said the phrase at the time of birth wasn't
Speaker 1: applied correctly by the AAT, and therefore its finding couldn't stand.
Speaker 4: Although Miss Jagleman has undertaken a prenatal check of Miss
Speaker 4: Sue's biological mother when she was five months pregnant, Miss
Speaker 4: Jagleman did not, at the time of that check, or
Speaker 4: any time prior to being informed of Miss Sue's birth, acknowledge,
Speaker 4: represent or assume any parental responsibilities for Miss Sue.
Speaker 1: They also offered a heartfelt acknowledgment of Jagleman's gesture.
Speaker 4: The application of that narrow time requirement to the facts
Speaker 4: of the present case is heartbreaking. Miss Jagleman's dedication and
Speaker 4: devotion to her daughter is unquestionable. However, the pathways to
Speaker 4: Australian citizenship chosen by Parliament are circumscribed by arbitrary lines.
Speaker 4: The fairness of those lines reflect the legislative policy choices
Speaker 4: made by Parliament.
Speaker 1: Coming up. Y Nji's older brothers, born in remarkably similar circumstances,
Speaker 1: got a very different result. Paul Garvey's reporting on this
Speaker 1: issue has been truly breathtaking. He's been combing through dense
Speaker 1: judgments and talking to everyone about the complex nature of
Speaker 1: Australia's immigration decisions. Our subscribers have been with him every
Speaker 1: step of the way, and you can join us at
Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au. We'll be back after
Speaker 1: this break. Before Enji's birth, Jagleman had brought into her
Speaker 1: family two other young people born with medical conditions.
Speaker 3: So the first of these boys a boy and named
Speaker 3: and Lee. He was born in a hospital in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety eight. He too was abandoned by his biological parents
Speaker 3: at birth. He was born with a cleft lip in
Speaker 3: a cleft palate, and the Akha ethnic minority parents again
Speaker 3: saw those conditions as a sign that the child was cursed.
Speaker 3: Miss Jagleman was working in the hospital at the time.
Speaker 3: She observed that this baby was just being left and
Speaker 3: neglected and the hospital wasn't being fed, and after three
Speaker 3: days she went to the director of the hospital and
Speaker 3: offered to raise the boy as her own child. So
Speaker 3: she's been raising en Lee ever since. Now. Eighteen months later,
Speaker 3: she gets a call from a pediatrician at the hospital
Speaker 3: telling her that another newborn baby has just been abandoned
Speaker 3: by his biological parents, again because of a cleft lip.
Speaker 3: And cleft palate, and asking her if she could take
Speaker 3: that baby. She gets to the hospital the next day
Speaker 3: and is surprised to find that the biological parents are
Speaker 3: there in the hospital with this child. Miss Jagleman says
Speaker 3: to them, look, I'm not going to take your baby.
Speaker 3: She shows how to feed this baby with a special
Speaker 3: cleft palette bottle and promises that when the baby is
Speaker 3: five months old, she will organize the free surgery to
Speaker 3: correct the cleft palate. She gets home the following day
Speaker 3: and the shopkeeper next door gives her a box which
Speaker 3: has been left for her. She opens the box and
Speaker 3: inside is the baby, the bottle, his birth certificate, and
Speaker 3: a note asking her to raise this child. She's subsequently
Speaker 3: found out that the parents had confided to the hospital
Speaker 3: that if they took the baby home, their relatives would
Speaker 3: see the baby as cursed and would have killed the baby.
Speaker 3: Both these boys similar stories to that of Ng. Those
Speaker 3: two boys had their cases go before the Administrative Appeals
Speaker 3: Tribunal in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, respectively. Both
Speaker 3: made similar arguments to what we saw with Enng last year.
Speaker 3: Both received favorite rule outcomes from the tribunal and neither
Speaker 3: boy had their outcome challenge by the Immigration Minister of
Speaker 3: the time. This is different in that we've had a
Speaker 3: similar decision similar circumstances. Yet Andrew Dalds, as the Minister,
Speaker 3: has used his authority to fight this decision and take
Speaker 3: it to the Federal Court, which has sided with him
Speaker 3: in his department in this case.
Speaker 1: Since Enji's older brothers were granted citizenship, the full Court
Speaker 1: of the Federal Court made a new decision clarifying how
Speaker 1: the question of time of birth should be interpreted and
Speaker 1: that's what led the court to its decision in Enji's case.
Speaker 1: The Minister gave The Australian a statement on Wednesday evening
Speaker 1: saying simply, Enji's case was about time of birth and
Speaker 1: that's what guided the court's decision. Paul Garvey is The
Speaker 1: Australian's West Australian Viewer Chief. Chris Dawson finds out on
Speaker 1: Thursday if his appeal against his murder conviction has been successful.
Speaker 1: Come back to the front to find out what happens
Speaker 1: to the teacher's pet case. After yet another twist