Background
Deyanti was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 1984. After her parents died, she entered Australia at age 16 with her aunt on an Indonesian passport and tourist visa. Her aunt later left Australia, and Deyanti was treated as having been abandoned in Australia as a child when her visa expired on 6 May 2001.
In 2024, Deyanti applied for evidence of Australian citizenship. She argued that the abandoned-child provision in s 5(3)(b) of the former Australian Citizenship Act 1948 deemed her to have been born in Australia and that this deeming could be displaced only by proof that she was entitled to another nationality. A ministerial delegate refused the application because her expired Indonesian passport established that she had been born in Indonesia. The Federal Court dismissed her judicial-review application, and she appealed to the Full Court.
The Court’s Holding
The Full Court unanimously dismissed the appeal with costs. It held that Deyanti’s proposed interpretation had no foundation in the statutory text: the phrase “unless and until the contrary is proved” did not mean that the deeming provision remained effective unless foreign citizenship was proved. Being a citizen of another country was not, under the relevant legislation, inconsistent with acquiring Australian citizenship by birth.
Banks-Smith and Stewart JJ concluded that the Court was bound by the earlier Full Court decision in SZRTN, which held that proof of birth outside Australia displaces the statutory deeming of birth in Australia. They were not persuaded that SZRTN was plainly wrong or that there was a compelling reason to depart from it. Younan J agreed that “the contrary” meant the opposite of having been born in Australia and agreed in the result. Because Deyanti’s Indonesian birth had been proved, s 5(3)(b) did not deem her born in Australia, and the delegate made no legal error by refusing evidence of citizenship.
Key Takeaways
- For the former Act’s abandoned-child provision, proof that a person was born outside Australia rebuts the deemed fact of Australian birth.
- The provision does not require proof that the person holds, or is entitled to, a foreign nationality before its deeming effect can be displaced.
- The Court acknowledged that the interpretation may leave an abandoned person stateless, but held that the statutory text could not be rewritten to avoid that outcome.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that the former abandoned-child provision does not itself guarantee Australian citizenship to every child abandoned in Australia who would otherwise be stateless. Once foreign birth is proved, the deemed Australian birthplace—and the resulting route to citizenship by birth—falls away.
The judgment also illustrates the force of Full Court precedent in statutory interpretation: a later Full Court must follow an earlier construction unless convinced that it is plainly wrong or that a compelling reason justifies departure, even when the statutory outcome appears inconsistent with the broader anti-statelessness purpose associated with an international convention.