Daily Telegraph Editorial: It’s time to figure out who is dinky-di
We should figure out all of this dual citizenship nonsense as quickly as possible. Which is basically what Australians have been demanding for several months now.
Opinion
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To absolutely nobody’s surprise, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Labor leader Bill Shorten yesterday failed to reach common ground on how to move forward on the issue of constitutional parliamentary eligibility.
Beyond that, however, a divide remains.
“We are certainly agreed on the need for disclosure and of the kind that I’ve set out in the resolution and we also agreed that the matter must be dealt with before the end of the year,” the PM said after the meeting.
“The disclosures should be made before the end of the year and the house and the Senate should have the opportunity, having considered those disclosures, whether any members or senators should be referred to the High Court.
“I do think it is important to get on with it, because we need to ideally be able to say to members and senators there is complete bipartisan agreement on the way in which the disclosure will be done and so people will be getting all of their paperwork into shape, into the correct form well in advance of the Parliament coming back and the resolutions being passed.”
What all of that means, in essence, is that we should figure out all of this dual citizenship nonsense as quickly as possible. Which is basically what Australians have been demanding for several months now.
Granted, this process is made considerably more difficult by the emergence seemingly every single day of more alleged dual citizens who hold seats in Parliament. Only a week or so ago, the likes of John Alexander and Alex Hawke were not even included in lists of potential foreign citizenship holders. Now the Liberal duo face serious questions over British and Greek citizenship respectively.
Dual citizenship claims have since been aimed at independent senator Jacqui Lambie, Liberal MP Jason Falinski and Labor MPs Emma Husar, Justine Keay and Susan Lamb.
Rather than investigating how many MPs are dual citizens, it might be faster to deal with all of those who aren’t.
IMPORTING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Domestic violence is a grave enough problem in Australia already without importing those who would make the problem even worse.
Yet matters have evidently now reached the point where migrants to Australia need to be specifically told not to bash their wives or harm their children.
State Coroner Michael Barnes and a team of NSW domestic violence researchers aim to include anti-violence messages in handbooks for migrants, along with advice for escaping abusive relationships. Perhaps warnings against domestic violence
should go even further. The possibility of deportation might
be a powerful disincentive.
LAW NEEDS MERCY KILLING
Hundreds of businesses hold Royal Warrants. Occasionally you may notice fancy packaging indicating this. The phrase “by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen” is generally used.
That’s because drivers facing potential disqualification for speeding or other offences have twigged to an ancient law called the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, which was traditionally a last-chance option in capital cases where murderers were sentenced to be hanged or sent to penal colonies. But the law remains on the books, and is increasingly being used by drivers.
As a Daily Telegraph investigation reveals, out of 85 applications for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy since January 2016, 71 were made by banned drivers. Of those, 18 were granted.
A successful application involves little-known processes that, while not going all the way to the Queen, at least reach the NSW Governor David Hurley.
It’s all very anachronistic and outdated. The Royal Prerogative of Mercy could do with some mercy killing.