Dual Citizenship Crisis - s 44(i)

[swoop42]

I have no time for Joyce but he was born in Australia and to me that makes him Australian and he has every right to continue in his job.

[ronrat]

With Joyce I can't see how NZ law can apply. The only place it could have jurisdiction would be if he was in NZ and did something illegal there.

When I was in Defence we had a contract to build radios with a British company. Then they would transfer knowledge to Australia and put an assembly line in etc.

Part of the packages was a heap of documents pertaining to part numbers etc. Some idiot classified the lot as AUSTEO which is Australian Eyes Only, Of the 4 people who needed this stuff all had served with the Army during national service and all had been to Vietnam. You only had to be a permanent resident to get a draft number. 3 of them had never given up British Citizenship and therefore couldn't work on them. Our Director who was eminently sensible came up with "If they were willing to put an Australia uniform on and get shot at they were Australian enough". Nothing more was ever said.

But technically I suppose they couldn't stand for parliament.

I am surprised Turnbull hasn't attacked Shorten for making us subservient to another Nation (other than the USA).

[David]

[Culprit]

Section 44 is so clear I am amazed at the problems. Joyce's Dad didn't become a Kiwi overnight. It's amazing that the Attorney General suggest that ignorance will clear Joyce yet in our legal system ignorance cannot be an excuse.

[Pies4shaw]

There's now some suggestion that 4 ALP Members also might be in breach of section 44. It's getting to the point where one might well wonder if there are any sole-allegiance Australians in the Parliament.

[Culprit]

Does everyone know how long Section 44 has been in place? This didn't come in last year. All members found to have Dual Citizenship need to be removed, all benefits to become null and void instantly. Start making it a financial penalty and you watch them start checking.

[David]

There may well be a financial penalty if they're found to have been improperly elected (namely, the loss of all their financial earnings as MPs or Senators).

I disagree with you that section 44 is clear, though, Culprit. "Allegiance to a foreign power" has previously been interpreted in the courts as referring to dual citizenship, but that doesn't mean that that was the original intent of the passage or that there couldn't be exceptions to that interpretation. As noted above, there was no concept of Australian citizenship in existence at the time. Also, see the minority opinion in the 1992 Sykes vs Cleary case, for instance:

https://twitter.com/AntonyGreenABC/status/896900156691431424

[Culprit]

^^Interpretations are the joys of our lives, ask ten lawyers to give you an interpretation and we will get ten different answers. Pretty much like AFL umpiring

[Pies4shaw]

In this case, you ask 7 and you get a 6:1 answer.

[stui magpie]

[David]

Have no doubt that Labor have a skeleton (or passport) or two in their closet. As soon as two out of nine Greens senators went, you just knew there had to be more politicians in the gun. Frankly I hope this whole debacle means someone will finally call a referendum and get this law off the books.

(While I expect most Australians might unfortunately vote no on allowing people who have sought second citizenships to serve in parliament, I'd be somewhat satisfied with a law that at least protects those who have been granted citizenships unwillingly or without their knowledge, even if it means that the onus is for them to prove this was the case in court.)

[Pies4shaw]

So, on the assumption that you don't want people who owe allegiance to a foreign power governing us, what's the proposed alternative? The basic constitutional requirement is necessary - the wording could be narrowed but if that were really viable, the High Court would already have read it down.

At the end of the day, does it actually matter that some people are arbitrarily excluded from Parliament by a rule? It's not as outrageous - by any means - as many other consequences of the Constitution.

[stui magpie]

^

So 1 proposed alternative is that if you're an Australian citizen, born here, you are not considered to owe allegiance to a foreign country if you received that citizenship by right of that countries laws, by virtue of your descent.

Another country could conceivably make a law that said if you had an ancestor born in their country, with no generational limit, they considered you a citizen and there was no mechanism to revoke or annul that.

We can't control what laws other countries make, only our own, so ours need to be framed to cover the intent of what we want, without being subject to the variables of other countries brain farts.

Another option is to disallow duel citizenship so that if you take on Australian citizenship you are not allowed to be a citizen of another country, but that has similar issues if the other country recognises you as a citizen regardless.

[Pies4shaw]

Here's the first sensible thing that's been written about this topic in years:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/15/first-dog-on-the-moon-institute-investigates-australias-multicultural-parliamentarians

[stui magpie]

^

Lets not forget that many countries don't allow duel citizenship at all, and most of those that do have similar arrangements to clause 44 for elected officials.