Rita Panahi on politician citizenship status: End this farce with audit of all MPs
THE question of our MPs’ citizenship status would be laughable if it wasn’t so serious and it needs to be sorted out quickly with an audit of all of them, writes Rita Panahi.
Rita Panahi
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THE shambolic Turnbull Government continues to lurch from one self-inflicted crisis to another.
The limited achievements of the Coalition continue to be overshadowed by a series of disasters, with the latest threatening the very legitimacy of the government.
It turns out Nationals leader and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce is about as Aussie as Phar Lap and pavlova.
Well, he was until this past weekend, when he belatedly renounced his New Zealand citizenship. Unfortunately, it’s about 13 years too late.
One can only laugh at Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s bluster in accusing Labor of attempting to steal government by “entering into a conspiracy with a foreign power” when there is no one to blame for this calamity but Joyce and the Nationals, who failed to properly vet him in 2004.
It’s not the fault of New Zealand Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne or NZ Labour MPs that Joyce somehow overlooked the fact that his father was born in the Land of the Long White Cloud.
It was unedifying of Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop to attack NZ Labour on Tuesday and state that she “would find it very hard to build trust” with any government it formed.
Joyce has said that he was “shocked” to learn he was a NZ citizen. How can a man of Joyce’s experience and nous be so utterly ignorant of his own citizenship status?
If my 10-year-old son knows that he is a dual citizen, even though he was born in Australia, then surely it’s not too much to expect seasoned politicians to be aware of their citizenship status.
We all know that dual citizens are not eligible to sit in the federal parliament. It’s all there in Section 44 of the Constitution.
Whether you agree with the law is immaterial; it is a part of the Constitution and remains popular with most Australians.
Personally, I am not a fan of the law and don’t believe being a dual citizen should disqualify a candidate from serving in the federal parliament, but I’m in the minority. The chances of S44 being overturned in a referendum are about as likely as New Zealand winning the soccer World Cup.
The law is quite clear — no candidate for federal parliament can have “any acknowledgment of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power” or be “a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power”.
One exception is if a candidate “had taken reasonable steps to renounce that nationality” before he or she nominates.
Presumably, the government has strong advice from constitutional law experts that Joyce will be spared by the High Court thanks to that exception.
Attorney-General George Brandis said the question will be whether Joyce took reasonable steps in adherence to S44.
“The legal issue here is not whether he is a citizen of New Zealand, but whether in the circumstances of this case, when he had no idea at all that he was a dual citizen,” he said.
But surely ignorance is no defence.
Read more: The Barnaby Joyce citizenship saga explained
The fact remains that Joyce took no steps to renounce his NZ citizenship until recent days and it is not unreasonable to expect individuals and political parties to check the citizenship status of candidates.
It defies belief that so many intelligent and well-paid politicians have doubts about the legality of their respective elections to the Lower and Upper Houses of parliament.
We’ve already seen two Greens senators — Canadian-born Larissa Waters and New Zealand-born Scott Ludlam — forced to quit after discovering that they were dual citizens. Nationals MP and former resources minister Matt Canavan has quit the Cabinet while his status is verified.
He is the only one who can feel hard done by, given that he and his parents were all born in Australia but, unbeknown to him, his mother took steps to make him an Italian citizen 11 years ago.
There is also a dark cloud hanging over One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts.
Federal minister Christopher Pyne tried valiantly on Tuesday to shift the focus on to a number of Labor politicians — Justine Keay, Tony Zappia, Maria Vamvakinou, Susan Lamb and Brendan O’Connor — who he says have not proved that they were validly elected.
“If they are in the clear, they should produce the evidence. If they haven’t got the evidence, they need to have their status clarified by the High Court,” he said.
“The Labor Party needs to produce the evidence or the government will consider its options.”
You know we’re living in strange times when Greens leader Richard Di Natale is the one making most sense on an issue. Any issue.
Di Natale’s calls for an audit of all federal politicians’ citizenship is sound and necessary.
That is the only way to restore confidence and assure the public that every parliamentarian is fit to stand under the law.
Any politician who was born overseas or has a parent or even a grandparent who was born overseas needs to show that they hold no other citizenship.
Meanwhile, Joyce’s only hope is the possibility of High Court justices who may want to put their own stamp on Australia’s Constitution by interpreting S44 in a way that allows ignorance to be a viable defence. Otherwise the government faces a by-election in New England that puts its one-seat majority at risk.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist
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