This is the awkward video that’ll haunt Barnaby Joyce, as he cracks jokes about being a dual citizen

IT’S the joke about being a dual citizen made just two weeks ago that’s come back to bite Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. He’s not laughing now.

A LOT can change in politics in just two short weeks, as Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce will know today.

The Nationals leader was on Channel Nine’s Today show barely a fortnight ago cracking jokes about being a dual citizen. Needless to say, he’s not laughing now.

Reporter Deborah Knight said she threw the “bit of a joke question” at Mr Joyce as the saga of MPs being dual citizens was embroiling Canberra.

Barnaby Joyce cracking jokes about being a dual citizen in an interview with the Today show just two weeks ago. Picture: Supplied

Greens politicians Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam had fallen on their swords and both government minister Matt Canavan and One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts had been referred to the High Court.

“Have you gone back (and) triple, quadruple-checked your own background there,” she asked in the interview.

Mr Joyce brushed off the suggestion, saying “everyone has had the conversation with their mothers and fathers”.

“’When I was asleep, did you make me a citizen of Botswana?’” he laughed.

As his eligibility to sit in Parliament comes under question, Barnaby Joyce isn’t laughing now. Picture: AAP

He reiterated that he was born at Tamworth Base Hospital, where his great-grandmother was born 100 years before him.

“I am an Australian — no problems there,” he concluded.

Two weeks on, there is a very big problem for Mr Joyce and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s majority government.

Barnaby Joyce has referred himself to the High Court after learning he could be a dual citizen of New Zealand. Picture: Supplied

It was revealed on Monday morning that the Deputy MP may indeed may be a dual citizen of New Zealand and the matter has been referred to the High Court.

“Last Thursday afternoon the New Zealand High Commission contacted me to advise that on the basis of preliminary advice ... they considered that I may be a citizen by descent of New Zealand,” Mr Joyce told Parliament.

Originally published as This is the awkward video that’ll haunt Barnaby Joyce, as he cracks jokes about being a dual citizen