Citizenship debacle: Liberal Jason Falinski scrambles as ALP takes aim

Liberal Jason Falinski has lodged new documents in a bid to prove he is not a Polish citizen.

Liberal MP Jason Falinski. Picture: Kym Smith

Liberal backbencher Jason Falinski has lodged new documents on the parliamentary citizenship register in a bid to prove he is not a Polish citizen, amid calls from Labor for his case to be referred to the High Court.

Embarrassed after Labor senator Katy Gallagher was yesterday found to have been ineligible to stand at the 2016 election — prompting the resignation of three more Labor MPs with citizenship doubts — manager of opposition business Tony Burke launched a fresh attack on Mr Falinski.

Despite Mr Falinski’s scramble to update the register, Labor ­sources indicated they ­would continue their push against him.

Mr Falinski’s father, Stanley (Stanislav), was born in 1943 in Tokmok, then part of Russia, to Polish-born ­father Leon and Russian-born mother Maria.

The family moved to ­Poland in 1946 and lived there until emigrating to Australia in 1958.

Australian National Archives documents show all three Falinskis declared their nationality as Polish on entering Australia. Under Polish law, a child born to a Polish parent automatically ­acquires citizenship at birth.

Mr Falinski last night lodged legal advice to the effect he was not affected by section 44. He also filed a letter from Polish ambassador Michal Kolodziejski stating that he was “not entitled to the rights or privileges of Polish citizenship”.

Mr Burke yesterday said there was a “cloud” over the citizenship status of a number of Liberal MPs, singling out Mr Falinski. “The right thing for them to do, and this is all based on what they have made public and what they left in doubt — with Jason Falinski probably being the one where the evidence appears strongest based on entry in 1958 and Polish passports back then — we’re not saying he should leave the parliament tomorrow, but that one should be referred to the High Court,” Mr Burke said.

 

Mr Falinski, the MP for Mackellar in Sydney, said the National Archives documents “proved nothing” about his father and grandparents’ nationalities when they arrived in Australia.

“These documents have been in the public arena for a long time now. They’re not conclusive of anything,” he said. “I’ve had legal advice up hill and down dale on this. I’ve had a letter from the Polish ambassador saying I’m not ­entitled to Polish citizenship.

“Labor is just desperately trying to divert attention away from their own problems.”

The National Archives documents state numerous times, ­including in his grandfather’s handwriting, that Mr Falinski’s grandparents were married. Mr Falinski claims they never married, but stated in documentation that they had done so to protect their son from shame associated with being born out of wedlock.

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His lawyers have used his ­father’s status as an illegitimate child to argue that he could not have inherited citizenship. “It continues to be our view that Stanley was born out of wedlock (and therefore would have been considered illegitimate under Polish law). Stanley did not inherit Leon’s citizenship on that basis and it is therefore unlikely that you have acquired Polish citizenship by ­virtue of your paternal grandfather’s nationality,” Mr ­Falinski’s advice from Arnold Bloch Leibler states.

Mr Falinski said it was “offensive” for Labor to suggest he could be a Polish citizen: “They’re largely picking on me because I’ve got a funny last name. There were some problems with documents because it was World War II.”

There are parallels between Mr Falinski’s case and that of Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, who last year received legal advice from Hungarian, Polish and Australian citizenship law experts to assure himself he had not acquired dual citizenship through his parents or grandparents.

Mr Frydenberg’s mother was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1943, while his Australian-born father’s parents were both born in Poland. His mother and her family were considered stateless when they arrived in Australia in 1950, having fled the Holocaust.

Under a Hungarian citizenship law designed to address the stateless status of Jews, who were murdered in their tens of thousands and driven out of Hungary during World War II, anyone born in Hungary between 1941 and 1945 is automatically considered a citizen.

Labor initially pursued Mr Frydenberg, but withdrew under internal pressure from several MPs, with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten citing Mr Frydenberg’s Jewish “family background” as the reason Labor was not pursuing him in December.

It is not clear why Labor has not also deemed it inappropriate to pursue Mr Falinski, whose Jewish grandfather’s immediate family was murdered in the Holocaust.