Student Loses Battle

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32114, 9 October 1969, Page 17

Student Loses Battle

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) MELBOURNE, Oct. 8. A Chinese student, Ng Chong Son, aged 25, who is alleged to have paid $2OOO for an Australian girl to marry him, today lost his legal battle to remain in Australia. The High Court unanimously upheld an appeal by the Minister of Immigration (Mr Billy Snedden) and thus paved the way for Ng’s deportation. Ng came to Australia in August, 1959, on an entry permit which entitled him to remain until August, 1963. He had left his mainland home, near Canton, for Hong Kong at the age of 14, and at 16 was accepted as a high school student in Sydney. Ng passed his intermediate examination but failed to complete the high school course which would have qualified him to go to university. Instead, he left school and married in July, 1963, one month before his entry permit expired. The couple separated almost immediately, and Ng spent the next few years travelling around Australia, working as a waiter or cook. He divorced his wife this year after five years separation.

Ng, who now works as a cook at a Penrith restaurant, about 40 miles west of Sydney, was granted a stay of the deportation order issued by Mr Snedden last December by Mr Justice Taylor in the High Court in Sydney. But today, the full High Court, presided over by the Chief Justice (Sir Garfield Barwick), upheld a Government apneal against the previous ruling.

The Chief Justice said that Ng was well aware of the

nature of the temporary entry permit he had signed, and that he had signed it voluntarily and knowingly. “Also, he had learned sufficient of the law touching migrants in this country to know that if he married an Australian girl he could stay,”

the Chief Justice said. “So he went through a form of marriage with a girl as a matter of convenience, paying $2OOO to the person who organised it for him.” Ng’s submission that he was not a prohibited immigrant was unacceptable. A spokesman for Ng’s defence counsel said today that a submission would be made to the Minister of Immigration in the next few days for a stay of the deportation order on humanitarian grounds. “Ng received most of his education in Australia and has been here for the last 10 years,” the spokesman said. “He thinks of himself now as a fully-fledged Australian.”