On 5 January 2005, the German Consulate in Melbourne told DIMIA that without information such as fingerprints, they would not be able to identify Anna and, on 14 January, said that officials in Germany had also made no progress. Rau herself contacted the consulate on 20 January, still identifying herself as Anna Schmidt, but staff told her that they still required more information. Consular staff later told Anna's case manager at Baxter that Anna's "child-like" command of the German language was consistent with Anna being an Australian of German background, corroborating the case manager's suspicion from the 24 November, meeting. It was noted in the Palmer Inquiry that, at times, Anna would speak English with an Australian accent and, at other times, with a German accent, alongside also speaking German.