Election 2022: Fowler victor Dai Le stands by her citizenship claims

Newly elected Fowler independent Dai Le has insisted she was ­eligible to stand for parliament.

Newly elected Fowler independent Dai Le: ‘I’m not a subject or a citizen of ­another country’. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Newly elected Fowler independent Dai Le has insisted she was ­eligible to stand for parliament but the Vietnamese-born MP has failed to explain why she ticked a box on her Australian Electoral Commission form asserting that she had never been a citizen of another country.

In a statement posted on social media, Ms Le, who defeated high-profile ALP candidate Kristina Keneally, accused the Labor Party of trying to smear her and damage her reputation.

“I can confirm that the AEC ­accepted my application to stand for the federal election and that I’m not a subject or a citizen of ­another country,” she posted.

However, Ms Le did not ­address the actual question posed by the AEC, which asked whether she had ever been the subject or citizen of another country.

The former Fairfield deputy mayor was born in Vietnam and left aged seven with her family in 1975, arriving in Australia in 1979 after spending several years in a refugee camp in The Philippines and Hong Kong.

The AEC makes it clear to all candidates that “completing this checklist does not guarantee that you are eligible to be elected under s. 44 of the Australian ­Constitution”.

“If you have any doubts about your eligibility, you should seek independent legal advice,” it notes.

The AEC form requires candidates who have been the citizen of another country to provide at least one official document showing how citizenship has been renounced or lost.

Ms Le did not do so.

If the former journalist has not obtained the necessary documents, she may be caught by the strict ruling of the High Court that it is not sufficient for a candidate to simply take “all reasonable steps” if the foreign state itself has not ­legally adopted the ­renunciation.

The major parties take great care to ensure candidates have the correct documentation from their countries of birth, following a ­series of s. 44 challenges in 2017 and 2018 when 15 MPs were forced out of parliament because of citizenship issues.

The defeated Liberal candidate for Fowler, Courtney Nguyen, ­acknowledged on her AEC form that she had been a subject or citizen of Vietnam and that her citizenship had been renounced on August 17, 2019. Ms Nguyen attached a decree signed on behalf of the Viet­namese prime minister allowing her to ­renounce Vietnamese citizenship.

University of Sydney constitutional law specialist Anne Twomey said Ms Le’s statement that she had never been a subject or citizen of any country other than Australia was “peculiar”.

“I would have thought that someone born in Vietnam would have Vietnamese citizenship,” Professor Twomey said, but ­she acknowledged she did not know the Vietnamese law on the issue.

“It doesn’t mean she’s necessarily disqualified at all – it may well be that she did take action to get rid of any other foreign citizenship and there’s no problem.”

Ms Le did not return calls and emails from The Australian.

Fairfield mayor Frank Carbone, who campaigned heavily for Ms Le, said on Tuesday that he ­believed she had a letter from the consulate of Vietnam that she had renounced her citizenship.

“She’s not a citizen of Vietnam, she’s never been a citizen, she checked that out, this is just someone getting a bit excited – they’re all going to end up with egg on their face,” Mr Carbone said.

The s. 44 issue would arise only if Ms Le’s eligibility was challenged by another candidate with legal standing or if she was referred to the court by the House of Representatives.

A NSW Labor spokesperson said the party had not raised any complaints over Ms Le’s citizenship and did not intend to pursue court action. Other Labor sources said it would be “a bad look” to take legal action against a popular and highly credentialed candidate like Ms Le.

In her statement, Ms Le said she would be leaving many social media platforms “to focus on the people of Fowler.”