No deadline set to refer Labor’s Susan Lamb to High Court

A deadline to refer a Labor MP to the High Court has not been set despite the government insisting she is a British citizen.

Labor member for Bowman Susan Lamb during question time.

A deadline to refer Labor MP Susan Lamb to the High Court has not been set despite the Turnbull government insisting she is a British citizen and should not be sitting in federal parliament.

Malcolm Turnbull and several of his senior ministers used the first sitting day of the year to pile pressure on Bill Shorten to refer the Queensland MP, but debate over Ms Lamb’s citizenship status descended into a political brawl.

The dual-citizenship fiasco, now in its seventh month, could also ensnare Labor MPs Katy Gallagher, Josh Wilson and Justine Keay, plus Nick Xenophon Team MP Rebekha Sharkie, who were British citizens when they nominated for the 2016 election despite taking steps to renounce.

Senator Gallagher’s matter is before the High Court and is considered a “test case” for the others.

Government sources said Ms Lamb’s referral was a “live option”, while leader of the house Christopher Pyne yesterday declared the Coalition would send her to the High Court “if necessary”.

But there are concerns within the Coalition about the precedent a “hostile” referral would set and Attorney-General Christian Porter would not confirm the government would refer her if the Opposition Leader did not.

“What we are doing is hoping the Labor Party and Bill Shorten will do the right thing, and if they don’t … then it may be the case that further action is required,” Mr Porter told Sky News.

Labor is already preparing for a tough by-election against the Greens in the inner-city Melbourne seat of Batman after David Feeney was forced to resign after he could not find evidence he renounced his British citizenship.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus would not explicitly say whether he believed Ms Lamb, who failed to complete her British citizenship renunciation because she did not provide all relevant documents, was a dual citizen or took all “reasonable steps” to rescind foreign citizenship. “Obviously she stood for parliament — we think she’s eligible not only to have run for parliament but to be a member of parliament,” he told Sky News. “We think that about our other two MPs (Ms Keay and Mr Wilson) in the House of Representatives.”

Manager of opposition business Tony Burke claimed people would start focusing on other MPs in doubt if parliament referred only Ms Lamb, as Labor continued to push its proposal to refer all members facing citizenship questions. Mr Dreyfus said that must include Liberal MP Jason Falinski, claiming he was Polish because he was the child of a Polish citizen.

Mr Falinski says his grandparents lost their Polish citizenship when they migrated to Australia after World War II, there was no documentation showing they were married, and his father was never Polish.

The Prime Minister yesterday mocked Mr Shorten’s push for a national integrity commission, joking he was “standing up for the integrity of the parliament” by “standing up for the right of UK citizens to sit in the House of Representatives”.

Steve Martin, the next-in-line candidate to replace Jacqui Lambie in the Senate, will have his ­eligibility tested before the full bench of the High Court today.