Motions

Jenkins, Mrs A.

The Hon. F. PANGALLO (20:00): I move:

That this council—

1. Notes the strong and enduring cultural, sporting, tourism and business ties South Australia and Adelaide continue to have with Malaysia, in particular the 48-year sister-city relationship with George Town, capital of Penang.

2. Recognises that Annapuranee 'Anna' Jenkins went missing on 13 December 2017 while she was on a family visit to George Town, Penang, Malaysia, and was reported missing the following day.

3. Calls for the Royal Malaysia Police, the Australian Federal Police, Interpol and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to:

(a) provide details of any formal investigations carried out into Mrs Jenkins' unexplained and sudden disappearance, and whether they are satisfied with the outcomes of those investigations;

(b) confirm the subsequent discovery of skeletal human remains and personal effects, identified as being those of Mrs Jenkins by a member of her own family, in June 2020 has been fully investigated, and that a suspicion of foul play/murder be fully examined;

(c) ensure a comprehensive excavation search of the area, and surrounding areas, where the human remains and personal effects were found is undertaken.

4. Calls on the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Marise Payne, to:

(a) contact the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato' Sri Ismail Sabri bin Yaakob, and Malaysia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dato Saifuddin bin Abdullah, to ensure these actions contained in paragraph 3 are undertaken as a matter of urgency;

(b) demand the Malaysian government repatriate skeletal remains of Mrs Jenkins to South Australia Police for further forensic examination, along with all DNA reports, the post-mortem reports of the Police Report # 2519/2020 and relevant case notes.

5. Requests the President of the Legislative Council write to Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the constitutional monarch and head of state of Malaysia, to express the concern of the Legislative Council of South Australia that the disappearance of Mrs Jenkins, an Australian national, may not have been properly investigated and request he refer the matter to the Royal Malaysian Police Inspector-General as an urgent and high priority.

6. Acknowledges the continuing trauma and distress this is causing Mrs Jenkins' husband, Frank, her children, Greg Jenkins and Jennifer Bowen, two grandchildren and extended families in such harrowing circumstances.

The motion I am moving relates to one of the most upsetting and heartbreaking stories I have encountered. This is a story of the abject neglect of the fate of Annapuranee (Anna) Jenkins, a loving wife, mother and grandmother from Adelaide, who vanished in Malaysia in baffling circumstances, never to be seen alive again.

What is particularly disturbing and shameful about all this is that nobody seems to care about what happened, especially when foul play, murder, is highly likely—nobody in Australia, her own adopted country of more than 40 years, where she raised her family with her husband, Frank, a retired RAAF serviceman, and nobody in Malaysia, the country of her birth in 1951 and where she went missing during a family visit in George Town, Penang, on 13 December 2017.

The only ones who do care are Anna's distraught and still grieving family, which has been desperately searching for answers and running into brick walls of resistance from inept police in Malaysia to our own federal government and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur and the Australian Federal Police. This disgraceful incident defies belief. It is painful beyond words, and all Australians should be shocked. None of us would ever want something like this to ever happen to you or members of your family.

At the time, Mrs Jenkins, aged 67, was in George Town with her husband, Frank, visiting her dying 101-year-old mother. The happily married couple made the trip at least once a year and obviously were extremely familiar with the country and its customs. The facts known so far in the matter are that on 13 December 2017, Mrs Jenkins caught an Uber from her George Town hotel to visit a dentist and then was to call in to see her mother at a nearby nursing home. Following the dental visit and en route to the nursing home, Mrs Jenkins was alleged by the Uber driver to have asked the driver to immediately stop on a busy road, and she exited the vehicle, something totally out of character. Anna was never to be seen again.

For four years, her devastated family, husband Frank, now a fragile 83, son Greg Jenkins and daughter Jen Bowen—and I will acknowledge that they are in the gallery this evening—and her two grandchildren, Will and Henry, have hit inexplicable roadblocks trying to get to the bottom of this deeply personal human tragedy. Their continued frustration and distress have been compounded by what can only be described as the apathetic incompetence by local Malaysian authorities in carrying out a full and proper investigation.

According to the Jenkins family, Malaysian police do not search for missing persons, as it is not considered a police matter. No proper inquiry was conducted. A thorough search of the area in which Mrs Jenkins was last seen was never conducted by Malaysian police. No footage from CCTV cameras in the area where Mrs Jenkins disappeared was either sought or reviewed in a timely manner before it was lost. No formal interviews or statements were taken with any of the last people to see Mrs Jenkins alive, including the Uber driver. No phone or possession examination was carried out.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has told the family it cannot and will not get involved in a Malaysian police investigation; it can only provide them with updates. Why can they not examine the poor outcome? Furthermore, the Australian Federal Police has also informed the family that its liaison officers in Malaysia will not assist in Malaysian police investigations—seriously. The family has also been informed that the Australian High Commissioner, based in Kuala Lumpur, has no authority to act on a family's behalf.

The Jenkins family has approached almost 200 lawyers throughout Malaysia to represent them but only one was prepared to assist. The family says there is a reluctance by lawyers to become involved because it involves scrutiny of the Royal Malaysia Police. With nowhere else to turn, the family has been forced to undertake its own ongoing investigation. They have become homicide detectives themselves. The Jenkins family has conducted 87 per cent of the investigation compared with a pathetic 13 per cent by the Malaysian police.

Here is the extent of what Anna Jenkins' distraught son and daughter have had to do. They made 21 trips to Malaysia. They have travelled more than 73,000 kilometres across Malaysia, combing streets, searching hospitals, morgues, churches, back alleys and shelters while distributing thousands of flyers, banners and stickers. They interviewed more than 1,000 people and pursued countless leads. To date, it has cost them almost $200,000.

The only breakthrough from their own persistence was that they uncovered some vital clues which now appear to confirm that Mrs Jenkins may have been the victim of a robbery that turned horribly violent. They include the discovery of what could be Anna's bone fragments, still to be confirmed by independent DNA analysis that they do belong to Anna, and some personal items found in and around the vicinity of a building allotment where she was last seen alive. Greg Jenkins wants the site scoured in the hope that the rest of Anna's remains will be found.

However, there is resistance because local authorities have no desire to upset the developer of the site. Their ongoing determination and commitment to seek the truth is admirable, yet one can also understand their anger and disappointment at the intransigence they have encountered. Nobody deserves to be treated like that.

Australian media is renowned for scrambling and clawing all over themselves in turning young and attractive citizens banged up abroad into instant celebrities. Some cases of note include drug mules like the Bali Nine. Schapelle Corby goes from Ganja Queen behind Kerobokan prison bars to film and reality TV star. 'Cocaine Cassie' Sainsbury was feted after her arrest and gaoling for drug smuggling in Columbia. Then, of course, there are the cause celebre cases that stimulate global interest. International media coverage can sometimes help put pressure on obdurate foreign governments.

Wrongfully arrested and detained in Cairo, Peter Greste is now a professor in journalism and communications at the University of Queensland and a leading advocate for media freedom. Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a lecturer in Islamic studies at the University of Melbourne, was detained for two years by Iran as an accused spy. Sustained pressure through media coverage contributed to her release.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange garnered immeasurable support. Australian journalist Cheng Lei, once a bright light on Chinese state TV, is now being held in a Chinese detention centre for spying. She has become a human face of the diplomatic fallout from Australia's curdling relations with Beijing. There was the sad case of Australian mother Sally Faulkner, who failed in an attempt to snatch back her two children from their father in Beirut, in the company of a 60 Minutes crew six years ago.

The murder of 22-year-old American Gabby Petito generated far more coverage in Australia than Anna Jenkins. In September, the ABC posted an online story in which US activists lamented much more coverage was given to Ms Petito, a white woman, compared with missing women of colour in the United States. They lamented that there was deep-rooted racism and stereotypes behind the unequal response when coloured or native women go missing or are murdered.

The Petito family thankfully have had closure, tragic as it was. Not so for the family of Anna Jenkins in Australia. Anna Jenkins was an unassuming, dark-skinned woman of Malaysian Indian background in her mid-60s. Her disappearance and her appearance did not fit the news judgement of a Gabby Petito in this country and that saddens and troubles me as a journalist and a citizen. As Mrs Jenkins' frustrated family poignantly states:

If Mum was a young attractive white woman we would get more attention to her case. Instead, she has been treated like a nobody.

I am pleased to say that might have changed today. Thanks to a taut and provoking human interest feature about the Jenkins case by David Penberthy in The Australian, the case has ignited national and international media attention. I can only hope it also sparks some action in Malaysia.

Anna and Frank had been happily married for more than 40 years. They met while he was posted to the RAAF's Butterworth base in Malaysia. She was a diminutive woman and Frank nicknamed her Wen or the Little One. They moved to Adelaide in the early 1970s with one-year-old Jen in tow. To learn English and the Australian way of life, she immersed herself in tireless charity and community work. She was a devout Christian and totally devoted to her family.

Ironically, Adelaide shares a unique, longstanding, 49-year sister city relationship with George Town, Penang, where Anna disappeared. I have written to the Prime Minister and the Foreign Affairs Minister insisting the federal government gets involved. I will also be moving to have you, Mr President, on behalf of the South Australian parliament, write to the King of Malaysia to make representations to the authorities there.

The Malaysians do not need any reminding of how much Australia invested in the costly and arduous search for missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which vanished from radar screens in 2014 with 227 souls lost, including Malays as well as Australian citizens on board. Yet this same commonwealth country we helped, and which we have strong ties with, cannot commit to trying to solve this mystery. After all, any international visitor to that country would want to know they can feel safe walking on their streets.

Despite the tragedy that has befallen them, there remains an unshakeable bond in the Jenkins family. As Frank battles loneliness and the onset of Alzheimer's without his beloved Wen, their promise to one another is indelible: 'We won't stop until we find her.'

Anna Jenkins' memory deserves much better than this. They deserve justice, they deserve closure. Why should we care less about her than any other human being who has had the misfortune of meeting such a terrible fate? Must Anna Jenkins be forgotten? No, of course not. I commend this motion to the chamber, and give notice that I will bring it to a vote on the next Wednesday of sitting.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.