Dual Citizenship Crisis - s 44(i)

[Culprit]

For all the simpletons, if you work or wish to work in the Australian defence sector, you have to declare your full history of your birth, including relatives and where they were born with proof. This even occurs in the "baseline" classification, which is the lowest level. The higher the security classification the deeper the Government check your history. How Politicians are not made to follow the same procedure is amazing.

It's not the hard. Section 44 is clear and what we have had occur is people failing to check their birth history. They are not applying for just an everyday job, it's a job in Government.

[David]

[Mountains Magpie]

[David]

Sure they could contribute, and enjoy various privileges and responsibilities. But they’d still be second-class citizens, unable to ever have a meaningful say in how their adopted country is run – whether they moved here at the age of 20, 13 or 6 months. Why would that be a good idea?

[Mountains Magpie]

You have a meaningful say at the ballot box

[David]

But not the right to participate in politics in any other sense and act as a representative of your fellow citizens. Most of all, though, I just can’t see why anybody would think this would be useful or necessary. I don’t know where you stand on Julia Gillard (I could take her or leave her as a politician), but the idea that someone like her should have been disqualified from politics while Pauline Hanson shouldn’t be just seems bizarre and pointless.

[David]

Is anyone keeping up with this? So far, we’ve had all of these found ineligible:

Scott Ludlam
Larissa Waters
Malcolm Roberts
Barnaby Joyce
Fiona Nash

Now, Liberal Party Senate leader Stephen Parry has been forced to resign because of likely dual citizenship. He’ll be off to the High Court, along with some combination of:

John Alexander (Libs)
Alex Hawke (Libs)
Josh Frydenberg (Libs)
Julia Banks (Libs)
Justine Keay (ALP)
Susan Lamb (ALP)
Jacqui Lambie

Plus, undoubtedly, others who haven’t yet come forward. And Pauline Hanson is apparently looking into her situation too. What a mess, hey?

[Jezza]

Interested to see if Alex Hawke holds Greek citizenship.

If he does, then I'm very likely to be unknowingly a dual citizen as well.

[Jezza]

Add Jason Falinski (Libs) to the list of those under the microscope.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/liberal-mp-jason-falinski-in-citizenship-woes-on-warsaw-connection/news-story/c7f26d41492e5a5398f705987c003dc6

[David]

[David]

Thanks for the link, by the way, Jezza. As much as I disapprove of all this, I am delighted by the idea of David Feeney being forced to step down – not only is he a particularly sleazy Labor operative, but a by-election in his seat would likely be won by the Greens (they only fell short by 1% in 2016).

[Culprit]

I love how if ALP MP's or Senators are found to be dual citizens then this is somehow a victory for Turnbull. Turnbull comes out in his proposal with "personal obligation" and I have no doubt there will be a plethora of loop holes to avoid punishment. I would suggest that after all the rhetoric and the High Court rulings, if a current sitting MP or Senator has any doubts or is unsure about their citizenship and they haven't done any checking or come forward. If they are now found to be a dual citizen, then not only should they be removed from office and charged; they then should be ruled out for contesting any bi election and be made to paid to back any monies, plus interest. This goes for all MP's and Senators no matter who they represent. Section 44 is clear and the highest court in the land has ruled it is as well.

[David]

Would you apply such a punitive standard to Josh Frydenberg, the child of stateless refugees, who may have been retroactively granted Hungarian citizenship in 2011, after he had already been elected to parliament for the first time? These are the kind of murky cases we’re dealing with here, after all.

I have some sympathy for the desire to punish MPs who have deliberately concealed their status, and perhaps there are indeed a few of them. But I think there’s a great many who simply aren’t or weren’t aware of their citizenship status (after all, if you were an aspiring politician who knew you were a dual citizen and knew the law, why wouldn’t you renounce it? Malcolm Roberts is the only one so far who seems to have acted deviously, and even he simply seems to have discovered his status too late and then attempted to cover it up). And I still think it’s a far less heinous act than refusing to report donations or deductions, a widespread issue which has more or less been shrugged off.

[Pies4shaw]

It says something about the quality of our democratic system that we can’t find a couple of hundred people in an entire country who meet the basic prerequisites for election. Lucky we didn’t include anything too onerous in the Constitution, such as the ability to read or write (or think).

[Culprit]

The media are now doing the work of the Parliament and we have 8 MP's in the lower house and 3 Senators citizenships is in question. It's 4 LNP and 4 ALP in the lower house. All 11 should front the High Court.