Citizenship saga: Anne Aly curiosities remain, Christian Porter says

Questions remain over an undated letter from the Egyptian embassy about the Labor MP, the Attorney-General says.

Attorney-General Christian Porter says questions remain over Anne Aly’s citizenship. Picture: Gary Ramage

Attorney-General Christian Porter says some Labor MPs are yet to provide evidence that their dual citizenship has been renounced, and “curiosities” remain over the case of Labor’s Anne Aly.

The Australian reported on Saturday that Labor MPs Emma McBride and Emma Husar had sought to renounce their dual citizenship, but failed to provide evidence that their requests were ever acted upon.

Mr Porter told Sky News that failing to abide by the parliamentary register was a breach of parliamentary privilege.

“The parliamentary register ... requires that you show the finality, the end, the completion of the renunciation process,” he told Sky News.

“Let’s forget the constitution for a moment. This is a registry required by the parliament which the Labor Party pushed for. And there are members of the Labor Party who just haven’t abided yet by the registry.”

Mr Porter said the government was prepared to accept a letter from the Egyptian Embassy stating Dr Aly’s Egyptian citizenship had ben renounced as “an authoritative statement about citizenship”.

However, he said there remained some unanswered questions over the undated letter.

“There are some curiosities about this. It appears Anne Aly’s citizenship was able to be renounced by a Council of Ministers in Egypt inside 48 hours. That would be one of the more efficient bureaucracies on earth,” he told Perth radio 6PR.

“This is an unsigned letter that appears to come from the Egyptian Embassy that says Anne Aly affected, so finalised, the renunciation of her citizenship.”

Labor MP Anne Aly. Picture: Kym Smith

The Australian revealed today that Dr Aly accepted more than $3000 in flights — ­including a trip to Cairo in July — from the Egyptian ­embassy, which last week issued the statement clearing her of being a foreign citizen.

Legal experts questioned whether the letter confirmed Dr Aly had satisfied key tests in Egyptian nationality law, specifically article 10, article 16 and article 22.

Constitutional law expert ­George Williams told The Australian there were a “number of MPs” who had come forward with “unverified statements as to whether they have renounced or hold citizenship under foreign law”.

He warned that documents from foreign embassies produced by MPs could not be taken as proof that dual citizenship had been relinquished according to the legal mechanisms of a foreign country, following the High Court’s strict interpretation of section 44 of the Constitution.

Shorten defends Aly, with a warning to government

Mr Shorten also defended Labor MP Anne Aly, saying she was not a dual citizen as he lashed out at the propagation of a “birther theory” in Australia’s political debate.

“The highest representative of the Egyptian government in Australia has said she’s not (a dual citizen),” he said. “Now if the government’s not satisfied with that then they are throwing some of their own members under the proverbial constitutional bus aren’t they? Julia Banks, Jason Falinski -- admittedly not household names but, nonetheless, Liberal backbenchers.

“They are relying on the same standard of proof that Anne Aly is and if they say that’s not satisfactory then I think their own members of parliament have some explaining to do.”

Additional reporting: Joe Kelly