more on Cornelia, mainly

So, we have German-born permanent resident Cornelia Rao, sometime flight attendant, an attractive woman with blonde hair and perhaps a troubled family history who at thirty-eight found herself under observation at Manley hospital, a diagnosed schizophrenic. Actually I’m not even sure about these facts, and I may have to delve deeper into this woman’s past.

Questions that arise, some big, some small. When did Cornelia’s schizophrenia first become manifest? What was her link to the Kenja cult, what is this cult, and how did it affect her condition? Why did Cornelia head north, to northern Queensland? Did her family do anything to locate her? On what basis was she transferred from the place of arrest to the BWCC, and on what basis was she incarcerated in the BWCC for six months? Why was she found not to have an acute mental health problem after six days of tests by psychiatrists, several months after stopping her medication? Why was she transferred from BWCC to the Baxter Detention Centre in SA, a place usually reserved for those who have entered the country by unlawful means? Why was she allowed to remain in Baxter in spite of a clear worsening of her condition, and why wasn’t her condition monitored by mental health professionals (or was it?)

The system failures in this story are numerous, and the Queensland police, the psychiatric professionals involved, those responsible for tracking missing persons, DIMIA and possibly Cornelia’s family all have serious questions to answer. Meanwhile I need to continue my research.

The kenja group – Cornelia apparently became involved in it in 1998, and her false name, Anna Schmidt is a composite of the names of other members – was named in NSW parliament back in 1994, and in might be an offshoot of scientology. The description of the group in parliament, by S B Mutch, is quite lengthy, and appalling in a funny way. I’ve bookmarked the transcript.

Barista, via Quiggin: the hospital (Princess Alexandria) apparently deemed her well enough to deport. These attitudes are seeping down from the government it seems. Raises the question, as these commentators mention, about what this psychiatric assessment was really all about.

The question of a national missing persons database is treated exhaustively at Dogfight at Bankstown.

And as time moves on – I’ve spent a relaxing but over-indulgent night away with Mat and Sarah and les gentilhommes and partners at Walker Flat on the Murray – I’ve encountered a Weekend Australian article which provides exactly the sort of timeline for Rao’s movements in the past ten months I’ve been trying to construct. Bloody dead tree journalists and their resources. And now I don’t have the paper (it was borrowed) and the article doesn’t show up on their online version.

So to move on – another Weekend Australian article deals with a subject ever-dear to me, porn lit. It raised again my interest, perhaps only a shadow of my former interest, in writing about sex, from a female perspective, from mixed motives, one of which is certainly titillation. As the article suggests, even bad writing about sex is likely to sell, providing it’s not too bad, and providing it’s written by a beautiful and apparently available and sexually wild woman.