Election 2022: Dual citizenship claims senator Ben Small

A Liberal senator has been embroiled in another dual-citizenship debacle, forcing him to resign just weeks before the election.

WA senator Ben Small. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

A Liberal senator has been embroiled in another dual-citizenship debacle, forcing him to resign just weeks before the election.

Former West Australian senator Ben Small, who filled the casual vacancy left by Mathias Cormann in 2020, revealed on Friday he had recently become aware he was a dual citizen of New Zealand.

Under section 44 of the Constitution, federal politicians are not able to stand for election if they hold dual citizenship, a rule that led to the resignation of numerous parliamentarians in 2017, including Barnaby Joyce.

Mr Small, who would have been vetted at the time of his entrance to the Senate, confirmed he had written to the president of the Senate.

“I have today written to the president of the Senate to advise him of matters related to my citizenship status and to resign as a senator for Western Australia,” he said in a statement.

“I was born in Perth in 1988 and have always been an Australian citizen. At the time of my birth, my mother was an Australian citizen and my father, who was born in New Zealand, was an Australian permanent resident.”

Mr Small said he had always thought he had no entitlement to New Zealand citizenship, but had the matter raised with him by ­Liberal Party officials last week, four days before the election was called.

“Yesterday afternoon, Thursday 14 April, the New Zealand high commission confirmed that I had been a citizen of New Zealand and, further to my application, granted a renunciation of any New Zealand citizenship rights,” he said.

While the question of his ineligibility to have filled the Cormann casual vacancy would need to be confirmed by the Court of Disputed Returns, Mr Small said he would now run for a spot in the Senate simply as a candidate.

“I remain strongly committed to fighting for the issues that matter to Western Australians, especially the small businesses across WA whose interests I have championed,” he said.

“Now that any questions around my eligibility have been resolved, I look forward to continuing to campaign across WA as a candidate for the Senate and to ­ensuring the Morrison government can continue to implement our plans for an even stronger Australia.”

Mr Small told The Weekend Australian he would be “back on deck assuming my spot is successfully elected”.

But Mr Small’s return to the Senate will rest on the Liberals winning three seats in the battleground state, given he is third on the party’s WA Senate ticket behind Attorney-General Michaelia Cash and whip Dean Smith.