Bernardi looks to stall SSM Yes vote

Senator Bernardi says the citizenship drama should force a delay in legalising SSM if the Yes vote prevails.

Australian Conservatives Senator Cory Bernardi says uncertainty over the citizenship of MPs should delay any move to legislate same sex marriage. Picture: AAP

Australian Conservatives senator Cory Bernardi has called for a delay in legalising same-sex marriage if the Yes vote prevails, declaring it was more pressing to ensure all MPs are eligible to sit in parliament.

Senator Bernardi, who has been pushing for parliament to be suspended while the eligibility of all MPs is audited, said there were more urgent problems in the remainder of the sitting year than passing a bill that will amend the Marriage Act.

“It is much more pressing to deal with the composition of the parliament to establish that it is actually constitutionally allowed to exist in its current status,” Senator Bernardi told ABC radio.

But Senator Bernardi, who defected from the Liberal Party this year, said he would respect any result which came out of the same-sex marriage survey, despite being strongly against the change.

“Eighty per cent of people, or thereabouts, have voted. I think that has exceeded the expectations of both sides of the debate” Senator Bernardi said.

“I hope that the people will respect the result, not withstanding we are going to have differences about the shape of any bill that goes forward ... but nonetheless it has been a pretty positive exercise for the country.”

Malcolm Turnbull will meet Bill Shorten in Melbourne today to try and get bipartisan agreement for his proposal to force MPs to disclose their eligibility in the parliamentary register of interests.

Labor flagged yesterday it would not accept parts of the proposal, including the requirement for MPs to lodge proof of their eligibility 21 days after the House of Representatives and the Senate passes a resolution which approves of the government’s plan. Labor argues it would be a “protection racket” for the government which has lower house MPs facing eligibility questions, including John Alexander, Julia Banks, Alex Hawke and Josh Frydenberg.

Treasurer Scott Morrison urged the Labor Party to take a “different approach” and work with the government constructively to solve the issue.

“What we’ve seen from the Labor Party is an attempt just to create uncertainty, to create disruption to create uncertainty, and I don’t think that’s a very constructive way to deal with an issue that would have been as much in existence under the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years as it has now presented itself and indeed for many governments prior to that,” Mr Morrison said this morning.

“It requires people to get together in good faith and to work to create certainty in an area where there has been a lot of confusion and I would say that I don’t think the Australian public will take kindly to an opposition seeking to be opportunists on this.”

Liberal MP Eric Abetz turned up the heat on the opposition this morning after fresh reports highlighted doubts on the eligibility of Labor MPs Justine Keay and Susan Lamb.

Both MPs failed to successfully renounce their British citizenships by the time they were announced as candidates, as the Constitution requires. Senator Abetz said Ms Keay’s case was “not dissimilar” to the circumstances of former One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts, who was struck out of parliament by the High Court.

“The fact that Ms Keay’s renunciation officially occurred not only after the close of nominations but indeed after Election Day is troubling. Worse still, we now know why she refused to release the information previously,” Senator Abetz said.

Opposition defence spokesman Richard Marles said Labor was confident Ms Keay and Ms Lamb were eligible because they had taken “reasonable steps” to renounce their citizenships by the time they were nominated as candidates.

“Justine Keay took all the steps she was required to take prior to nominating before the election to revoke her citizenship and that is bourne out by the fact that the steps that she took prior to her nominating ultimately resulted in the revocation of her citizenship coming through,” Mr Marles told Sky News.

“That is a very different situation to what we see on the other side which people basically sitting on their hands and checking a year after election as to whether they have got an issue here.”