Red-faced Greens left scrambling

Greens leader Richard Di Natale is scrambling to produce documents showing he renounced his Italian citizenship.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale is scrambling to produce documents showing he correctly renounced his Italian citizenship before entering parliament after his two co-deputy leaders were forced to resign after failing to conduct proper checks.

As Malcolm Turnbull hit out at the party’s “incredible sloppiness”, The Australian has learned Senator Di Natale, the son of Italian ­migrants, and Tasmanian Greens MP Nick McKim, who was born in the United Kingdom, are awaiting official documentation to prove they are not dual nationals.

Under the Constitution a ­person who is a foreign national is incapable of being elected.

Senator Di Natale’s office said his Italian citizenship was renounced “over a decade ago”, before his election in 2010, while ­Senator Nick McKim said he ­relinquished his UK citizenship in 2015 before filling the casual ­vacancy left by former Greens leader Christine Milne.

“Both Senator Richard Di ­Natale and Senator Nick McKim renounced their citizenship before they stood for election and can provide documentary evidence when they receive it from the appropriate officials,” a Greens spokeswoman said.

The citizenship fiasco entered its seventh day following the shock resignations of the Greens’ former West Australian senator Scott Ludlam and former Queensland senator Larissa Waters, who discovered they were citizens of New Zealand and Canada and therefore ineligible to ever have been elected. However the Greens are not the only ones struggling to produce paperwork.

One Nation Queensland senator Malcolm Roberts, who was born in India but says he was never an Indian citizen, could not give The Australian documents that proved he was not a dual national.

Senator Roberts yesterday said he would write to the Senate president and Speaker of the House to “ask for a full investigation into the citizenship status of all MPs” but was still collecting correspondence with the high commission of India in Australia that confirmed he had never been Indian.

“He’s happy to provide documents to a full inquiry that he (is calling for),” his spokesman said.

A high commission spokesman said a child born in India of foreign parents was “most probably going to be a foreign national”, and any Indian who became a citizen of another country had their citizenship automatically renounced.

It is understood Senator ­Roberts’s mother is Australian but his father is Welsh.

Senator Di Natale was ­adamant early yesterday that all remaining Greens MPs had checked their citizenship status and were in the clear despite he and Senator McKim not having the official paperwork.

The Prime Minister declared it “pretty amazing” that two of the nine Greens senators, who drew combined wages of almost $3 million, had not realised they were citizens of another country.

“It shows incredible sloppiness on their part,” Mr Turnbull told the Nine Network. “When you nominate for parliament, there is actually a question — you have got to address that Section 44 question and you’ve got to tick the box and confirm that you are not a citizen of another country. It is extraordinary negligence.”

The Prime Minister confirmed the government would grant pairs for the two former Greens ­senators, meaning there will effectively still be 76 votes in the Senate.

Attempting to turn the blunder into a positive, Senator Di Natale endorsed the Greens candidates most likely to replace Mr Ludlam and Ms Waters in the event of a special recount of the Western Australian and Queensland ballot papers — WA disability advocate Jordon Steele-John and former Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett.

Senator Di Natale also rubbished the idea that Ms Waters and Mr Ludlam should have to repay their salaries and any other debt owed to the commonwealth, as former senators Bob Day and Rod Culleton had been allowed to apply for waivers.

Mr Steele-John, who has indicated he would be happy for the party to choose Mr Ludlam’s replacement, is popular inside the party. But lawyer Kate Davis was yesterday considered a strong contender, after impressing party leaders when she stood for the federal seat of Fremantle in last year’s election.

Ms Davis is a campaigner against domestic violence who founded Tenancy WA, an advocacy and advice service for renters.

Bill Shorten said Ms Waters and Mr Ludlam were “quite meritorious individuals” but politicised their resignations, saying the Greens “had to get their house in order”.

“Australians will say ‘what is going on with the Green political party?

“Are they ready to be serious political operators, are they up for the job?’ So I think this sort of inadvertently damages people’s confidence, do they know what they are doing?” he asked.

Thirteen of the 27 parliamentarians who were born overseas or who had been gifted a second citizenship because of their parents’ nationality were able to provide The Australian with documents showing they had renounced their dual citizenship, taken “reasonable steps” to do so, or were never dual nationals.

Another three said they were unable to provide the documentation because they were travelling or could not physically access the paperwork by deadline, while Labor’s Penny Wong, Doug Cameron and Tony Zappia declined to present their documents.

Independent senator Lucy Gichuhi, parliament’s first Kenyan-born senator, pointed to a High Court ruling that found she was duly elected and that Labor’s push to challenge her citizenship should be refused.

Labor’s Alex Gallacher could not be contacted and Liberal MP Eric Abetz referred The Australian to a statement he made to the Senate in 2010 in which he informed the chamber that he had received a German renunciation certificate.

Tasmanian Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson was born in Singapore at the Royal Airforce Base Changi to Australian parents but said he was never a citizen of Singapore.

His office was unable to access the relevant documentation to show he was only an Australian citizen because Senator Whish-Wilson was on leave.

“I was issued with my passport documents by the Australian High Commission when I was three months old,’’ Senator Whish-Wilson said.

‘‘This issue was examined during my preselection process.”

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said the government could not afford to “start throwing rocks” at the Greens as their mistakes could be made by others.

“You’ve got to be really careful, if you start throwing stones when something was an honest oversight because you bet your life the stone will come back and hit you,” Mr Joyce said.

Additional reporting: Paige Taylor