Susan Lamb pledges to contest next election

Labor MP Susan Lamb has declared she will contest the next election without taking further steps to renounce her British citizenship.

Labor backbencher Susan Lamb in parliament this week. Picture: AAP

Labor MP Susan Lamb will contest the next election without taking further steps to renounce her British citizenship, as the Barnaby Joyce saga “diminishes” internal concerns about her status.

Ms Lamb confirmed to The Australian yesterday she would ask her constituents to re-elect her “whenever Turnbull decides to call the election”, vowing to fight for health, education, infrastructure projects and jobs.

It is understood Ms Lamb believes she is eligible to be elected despite still being British because she took “all reasonable steps” to renounce her foreign citizenship ahead of nominating for the 2016 federal poll.

The government’s focus on the Longman MP, who failed to complete her renunciation when she did not produce a copy of her parents’ marriage certificate, has waned in recent days as the scandal surrounding the Deputy Prime Minister overshadows federal parliament.

A Queensland Labor MP who did not want to be named said there had been concern about Ms Lamb’s case but that had “diminished”, courtesy of the scrutiny of Mr Joyce.

Another Queensland Labor MP claimed the government had “baulked” at “pulling the trigger” and referring her case to the High Court as Mr Joyce’s relationship with an ex-staffer “swamped any other issue”.

The government has repeatedly threatened to make a partisan referral of Ms Lamb if Bill Shorten does not act first, characterising it as a test of his leadership.

“The killing zone was before Christmas, it was coming back into parliament (when it resumed last week).

“They haven’t done it (a partisan referral), I don’t think they will,” a Labor MP said. “They might hang it over our head but as each day passes it’s getting harder for them to do.”

A prominent Queensland Labor powerbroker said the party was confident of Ms Lamb’s chances if she was sent to the High Court and even in a worst-case scenario at a by-election.

Ms Lamb holds Longman by a margin of 0.8 per cent, but a number of Liberal National Party MPs have also conceded they do not want a by-election because a government had never won a seat off an opposition.

Liberal senator Ian Macdonald accused Ms Lamb of “misleading” parliament after she made an emotional speech detailing her difficult childhood in a bid to stop the government from pursuing her dual-citizenship case.

Ms Lamb’s stepmother offered a different picture of the MP’s relationship with her estranged mother than the one given in her speech, prompting Senator Macdonald to claim the two stories were “clearly at odds”.

Labor MP Graham Perrett, who sat behind Ms Lamb when she delivered her parliamentary address, said it sounded like she had made “reasonable endeavours” to rescind her citizenship.

Terri Butler, also a Queensland Labor MP, backed Ms Lamb, saying she was “great” and it was “clear she took reasonable steps” to renounce.

Ms Lamb said she was advised she “did not have a legal right” to obtain her parents’ marriage certificate but Queensland’s registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages has a policy that recognises circumstances exist where an applicant without a direct relationship to the registered person “may have an unusual or exceptional reason for requesting” that person’s information.