TRANSCRIPT
One day on.
But after more than three years in custody in a foreign country, one day seems brief.
Twenty-four hours after the return of Cheng Lei, the first moments of her arrival back on Australian soil have been revealed.
Greeted by her family and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong, she spoke to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese by phone, thanking him and diplomats for getting her home.
"Hello, Prime Minister. What an honour! I was telling Minister Wong that it's because of you and all the team at DFAT that I'm able to make it here in one piece."
The moment wasn't lost on Ms Wong.
"So, it was really moving to meet Cheng Lei yesterday, and to speak to her kids, who are not much older than mine. I made them a promise some time ago: we would do everything, I would do everything I could, to bring her home. And it was wonderful to see them together."
In a statement, Ms Cheng has thanked Australians for their support, saying she's enjoying the simple things she couldn't do her in her tiny Chinese jail cell: like seeing the entirety of the sky, and most importantly, holding her two children.
Ms Wong passed on the best wishes of Australians in return.
"I wish her and her family well. She asked what she could do for us. And I said: you can thrive....thrive, and be healthy and happy. And that's what all Australians want you to be."
Amongst those Australians particularly glad to see Ms Cheng home is former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose government started the quest to free her.
"Well, I'm overjoyed Cheng Lei's back with her children, with her family, back in Melbourne. This has been three years of the most terrible ordeal that she has gone through. An ordeal she should never have had to go through."
A journalist working for state-owned television in China, Ms Cheng was detained in August 2020 over vague allegations of sharing Chinese state secrets.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry now claims she was actually sentenced to two years and eleven months in jail for her crime and that she's been released because she’s finished her sentence.
Currently in Taiwan, Mr Morrison is sceptical of that explanation.
"Well, I find none of this convincing. She should never have been detained, and nor should we be appreciative to the Chinese government that she's home. She should never have been detained, and particularly not in those circumstances."
Mr Morrison's successor as Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, isn't going that far.
"We don't deal with China on a transactional basis. We stand up for our values, and make representations. And we did so consistently. But we also do so diplomatically."
Ms Cheng's release has renewed the focus on other Australians still detained in China.
58-year-old Dr Yang Hengjun is a writer and blogger.
He's been in prison since 2019 charged with espionage in May 2021.
China's opaque legal system has yet to give him a verdict.
His colleague from the University of Technology, Sydney, Chongyi Feng, fears for his deteriorating health, and says he ought to be released.
"There's no legal obstacle whatsoever for the Chinese authorities to release Yang Hengjun, as they did to Cheng Lei. This is political prosecution."
The diplomatic case for his freedom is still being made.
