Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who just two months ago was freed from three years of Chinese detention, has a new job.

Lei has joined Sky News Australia as a news presenter and columnist, the network has confirmed.

Sunday’s announcement came after the long-awaited return in October of the former anchor for the state-run China Global Television Network to her young family in Melbourne.

Lei spent more than 1000 days in jail in China, after being accused of selling national secrets overseas.

Lei worked for CGTN, then known as CCTV, in Shanghai before moving to Singapore to become CNBC’s China correspondent. Almost a decade later, she returned to Beijing, where she was arrested in August 2020.

“Lei is an outstanding journalist and on-air presence,” Sky’s head of news, Elise Holman, said.

“We are exceptionally pleased that we are able to help her reclaim the professional identity that was taken from her for three years and put her back where she belongs, at the front of live TV news.”

Lei also chose Sky News Australia for her first interview after returning home, revealing “every dream was a nightmare” during her jail sentence.

“Waking up, if it was a good dream, waking up was worse, and if it was a bad dream then obviously you were frightened,” she said.

She had previously revealed in a letter that while in prison she was able to see the sky for only 10 hours in a year.

“Tight hugs, teary screams, holding my kids in the spring sunshine. Trees shimmy from the breeze,” she said in a heartfelt message to Australians in the days after her return.

“I can see the entirety of the sky now! Thank you Aussies.”

She shared more in a column for Sky, detailing “re-education” tactics used during her captivity.

“While my first six months of incarceration consisted of almost absolute silence, the next two years and ten months as a guest of the Ministry of State Security came with Chinese state TV to digest,” Lei said.

At the time of her release, Beijing said it was because Lei had served her sentence – despite never previously revealing its term.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it came after a long campaign.

“This is something we have advocated for, for a long time,” he said.

“This has been the subject of ongoing discussions between the Australian and Chinese governments – we’ve continued to make representations on behalf of Australian citizens.”

Lei said she had limited knowledge of diplomacy.

“What I do know from personal experience is that diplomacy matters, even at a personal level,” she wrote for Sky,

“Just 18 days after Albanese and [Chinese president Xi Jinping] met at the G20 in 2022, I was granted a phone call with my mum and children, something DFAT had been formally requesting for two years without success.

“In 1154 days of incarceration, that was the only time I heard the laughter of my children. To be Australian-Chinese is to be almost schizophrenic”.

Her appointment at Sky News Australia begins immediately.