Frydenberg’s mum dragged into activist challenge

A climate activist’s challenge to the Treasurer’s eligibility to sit in parliament hinges on claims over a travel document.

Climate activist Michael Staindl outside his home in Hawthorn, Melbourne. Picture: David Geraghty

A climate activist’s challenge to Josh Frydenberg’s eligibility to sit in parliament hinges on a claim the travel document the Treasurer’s Holocaust-survivor mother used to flee Hungary never existed.

New documents filed to the High Court on behalf of Michael Staindl said he did not know what document Erica Frydenberg, 76, had used to leave Hungary in 1949 but at the time there was no such thing as a single exit, no re-entry travel document.

“The petitioner does not know and therefore does not admit how Erica emigrated or what document she possessed, but says that there was, relevantly, no such thing as a document that authorised a single exit from Hungary with no right of return” a petitioner’s reply filed on behalf of Mr Staindl said.

Mr Staindl, a resident of Mr Frydenberg’s electorate of Kooyong, filed a court petition in July arguing the MP should be disqualified under the constitution because he is entitled to Hungarian citizenship.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is congratulated by his mother Erica as his father looks on after their son delivered his first Budget speech earlier this year. Picture: Gary Ramage

Mr Staindl said he believed the case against Frydenberg’s eligibility was strong and he was going to increase a fundraising initiative to pay for the ensuing legal costs.

"We're proceeding. We believe we have a very strong case and we're going to at least double our crowd-funding appeal effective immediately,” he said.

"It's our understanding no such law exists as per our expert report."

Mr Staindl, who is a member of activist group Extinction Rebellion, has previously told The Australian his constitutional challenge is purely motivated by frustration over a lack of federal government action on climate change.

Mr Frydenberg has denied he is eligible for Hungarian citizenship and said his mother most likely left the country of her birth in 1949 with a travel document authorising a single exit with no right of return, according to documents filed in the High Court.

“Erica emigrated most likely using a form of travel document which authorised a single exit with no right of return,” Mr Frydenberg’s legal response to the election petition filed to the High Court said.

“Erica otherwise had no right of return after her departure from Hungary.”

Mrs Frydenberg arrived in Australia with her siblings on the SS Surriento from the Italian city of Genoa in 1950 with travel documents - a Titre d’Identite et de Voyage- issued to stateless people by the Chief of Police in Paris.

Whether she arrived to Australia with a Titre d’Identite et de Voyage is not disputed but under a Hungarian citizenship law designed to address the statelessness of Jews, who were murdered in their tens of thousands and driven out of Hungary during World War II, anyone born in the country between 1941 and 1945 is automatically considered a citizen.

At a directions hearing in the High Court sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns on Thursday, Justice Michelle Gordon urged both parties to progress the case quickly as it was a matter of law.

“There are real issues here and I don't want there to be any misunderstanding,” she said.

“I want them to be resolved and resolved ASAP.”

Justice Gordon ordered a directions hearing for December 12 and flagged the case may have to be heard in the Federal Court.

Mr Frydenberg declined to comment.