Both sides want the citizenship mess settled sooner than later

MALCOLM Turnbull and Bill Shorten expressed opposing views on the citizenship debacle today. But don’t be mistaken, they both want the same thing.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addresses the parliamentarian citizenship debacle. Picture: James Ross/AAP

ANALYSIS

TALKS both sides called constructive today failed to reach concrete agreement, but don’t believe it’s going to be difficult to get a united front on bailing Parliament out of citizenship uncertainty.

Labor’s Bill Shorten wants more citizenship information from MPs and wants it quicker than Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has suggested.

But Labor is almost certain to sign up to a joint response to the instability generated by doubts over the eligibility of some MPs and senators to sit in Parliament.

The uncertainty is no friend of Labor, either, and all parties accept they could be caught by citizenship surprises.

They all want any referrals to the High Court underway before the end of the year, although the court would not get to substantial matters until it returned to work in early February.

Much as it wants a solution, Labor won’t resist the political temptation to make Malcolm Turnbull squirm a little more over citizenship and knows it has an advantage over the Prime Minister.

Mr Turnbull soon will fly to important Asia-based summits and won’t want the wrangle still unresolved when he gets home. He only has a few days to personally ensure this.

Mr Shorten today called it a “crisis which should have been dealt with immediately”, a clear criticism of the Prime Minister’s handling of it.

He ignored hypothetical legal arguments about how the High Court should have read the Constitution when it punted five senators and Barnaby Joyce, or whether the Constitution needs an update.

Mr Shorten went to the nub of the gripe from ordinary layperson voters. “What we to do us not change the Constitution. We just need to make sure the MPs are obeying the Constitution,” he told reporters after his Melbourne chat with the Prime Minister.

The timing of citizenship declarations by MPs and senators is a critical difference between the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader.

Mr Turnbull wants to give members until December 18. Mr Shorten believes they could do it by December 1, and he rejected spending even a dollar on the $1 million-a-day it costs to extend the sitting schedule of Parliament.

Further, Labor wants more than documents identifying birthplaces of MPs, parents and grandparents. It wants documents outlining the citizenship consequences of the lineage, in substantial detail.

And this would include, where appropriate, what steps were taken to shed an unwanted citizenship.

Prime Minister Turnbull today his two hours of talks with Mr Shorten were constructive and he awaited “further thoughts” from Labor. And he hoped for “ complete bipartisan agreement”. Eventually.

He hoped MPs would already be getting their papers into shape.