A TEENAGE asylum seeker who claimed to be abandoned, homeless and unable to afford food admitted she lied and that her parents sent her on a boat to Australia for a better education.
The 16-year-old Vietnamese girl may get to stay in Australia despite lying to authorities, with Department of Immigration lawyers looking at whether she may be owed complimentary protection in the wake of a Federal Magistrate's Court judgment last month.
A group of Vietnamese children arrived on a boat in March 2011, prompting concerned Australian authorities to investigate whether they were smuggled to Australia to be exploited.
In her entry interview, the girl told immigration officials she was 11 and was "an uneducated, homeless minor, having been abandoned by her parents".
She claimed she had slept on boats with her cousin and believed she had last seen her parents about three years before when she said they abandoned her because they had been persecuted for being Catholic.
Two months later she admitted she was almost 16, "she lived with her parents and two sisters before departing Vietnam for Australia, had been educated to year 10 level in Vietnam and had been in contact with her parents since arriving in Australia".
The girl told officials she had been encouraged to lie during the boat journey to Australia.
"I gave incorrect information in my entry interview because I heard from other people on the boat that if I told the truth about my parents being alive the Australian government would not protect me but because I am a Catholic I was very upset that I had lied and wanted to tell the truth," she said in a statutory declaration.
The girl's case was dismissed but because the judgment raised questions about complimentary protection and the truth of the girl's current claims, the case is being re-examined by department lawyers. "There is no intention to remove this person from Australia at this time," a department spokeswoman said. Meanwhile, two more boats carrying almost 110 people have been intercepted.
HMAS Pirie rescued 64 asylum seekers and two crew north of Christmas Island on Wednesday and HMAS Bundaberg intercepted a boat with 41 people near Darwin later that day.
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