Did we hear that correctly? All of a sudden Opposition Leader Bill Shorten wants political candidates to prove up-front they are not dual citizens. “I think that people want to just be certain that who they’re voting for is eligible to run,” he said on Tuesday, referring to the candidates in the upcoming Super Saturday by-elections who had either failed to complete a voluntary citizenship checklist or not given permission for the Australian Electoral Commission to make their documents public.
“I think for the absence of any doubt people should put forward their documentation, full stop,” added the section 44 constitutional tragic, his hauteur accentuated in the knowledge his party’s candidates had complied with the voluntary obligations. “I just think it’s prudential isn’t it?”
That could have reminded you of any number of things. Perhaps it was that feeling you get when you discover the office bully has nominated herself as the harassment contact officer. Or it could be that church elder who lectures the congregation on the virtues of monogamy, despite him being a well-known philanderer. Whatever the example, you know only too well that stomach-turning sensation when the hypocrite sermonises without so much as a mea culpa.
Neither of the major parties has acted honourably in the dual citizenship affair that began 12 months ago, a scandal that has disrupted, paralysed and brought into disrepute this parliament. That so many members continued to sit or were complicit in the knowledge that others were sitting contrary to the highest law in the land is incredible, even to those observers inured to political wrongdoing.
No-one in this saga better illustrated this contemptuous disregard for constitutional observance than Shorten. Of the 15 parliamentarians who fell foul of section 44, five were Labor members, compared with two from the Liberals and two from the Nationals. As leader, Shorten did everything possible to obstruct, obfuscate and prevaricate in order to prevent the public from learning of the anomalies within his party, while gleefully capitalising in each revelation that a Coalition member’s eligibility had been called into question.
When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull formally suggested last August that the government and Labor jointly refer a “bloc” of parliamentarians whose citizenship status was uncertain, Shorten not only denied the necessity in his party’s case but also exploited what was clearly a public interest proposal. Claiming Labor had the “strictest processes in place to ensure all candidates are compliant with the Constitution prior to their nomination for election”, he condescendingly replied to Turnbull that the Coalition’s section 44 issue “goes to the legitimacy and the integrity of your own government”.
You might consider, in light of the fact that five Labor members had sat unlawfully during this period, whether Shorten’s behaviour goes to the legitimacy and integrity of his own leadership. For a party leader to act so should forever preclude him from sitting on a town council, let alone the bench assigned to the alternative prime minister.
When Shorten’s own eligibility was questioned, there was, unlike now, no serene acknowledgement that he should be “prudential”.
“I strongly believe that MPs and senators should not be forced to produce evidence to counter claims that are made completely without evidence,” he huffily declared last August, drawing an analogy between these demands and the Obama ‘birther’ movement.
His reluctance to do so was understandable. Shorten knew that if he gave in to public pressure, as he eventually would weeks later, all Labor members would be obliged to do the same.
How he could have the audacity to reinvent himself as the benchmark of constitutional compliance after this is beyond me, as is any attempt to justify his conduct in that affair. But let’s give it a crack. Put your best apologist hat on and pretend that you are Shorten’s speechwriter.
As you’re aware I’m calling on all political candidates for the upcoming by-elections to take their lead from Labor and be up front with the public about their constitutional eligibility. We must be honest with the people who elect us and be transparent at all times.
Now some people have said my policy on section 44 compliance is hypocritical. I can assure you it is as consistent as my stance over the year on company tax cut rates, supporting the Fair Work Commission’s decision on penalty rates, and the desirability of a same sex marriage plebiscite. Let me just say that unlike the Liberals and Nationals, I’ve always been perfectly relaxed about voluntarily proving our members’ eligibility.
Some accused me of stonewalling and giving evasive answers when I appeared on Q&A last August and was asked by Tony Jones whether I’d release documents confirming I’d renounced my British citizenship. That’s not true. What I said to Tony was that by yielding to demands that you produce such documents, you “reverse the onus of proof that somehow you’ve got to contort yourself — that’s not the way it works.”
Those were my exact words. As you can see they’re not only ambiguous, they’re gibberish. I challenge you to definitively interpret what I was saying, for even I couldn’t tell you.
I don’t deny I said we had a “strict” vetting process for our candidates. What I meant is that it’s strict in the sense that the process is mandatory for candidates. As for its effectiveness or integrity that’s another thing altogether. I also don’t deny saying: “There is no cloud over any of our people”. I was right about that, with the exception of David Feeney, Katy Gallagher, Justine Keay, Susan Lamb, and Josh Wilson.
I was acting in good faith at that time. When I said last November: “When you…look at the track record, it has not been Labor and its ministers who have been the problem here,” I was technically correct, as no-one from our party had been caught out at that stage. Furthermore some astute political observers agreed with me that our processes were sound. Why, just that same month Fairfax columnist Peter FitzSimons tweeted “the Conservatives...haven’t done proper vetting while the ALP seem to have taken care of business.”
Yup. ;
— Peter FitzSimons (@Peter_Fitz) November 8, 2017
But what I find weird is that it is the Conservatives - born to run the show - who haven't done proper vetting, while the ALP seem to have taken care of business? https://t.co/UgvrfuXQEI
I can say hand on heart that our lawyer gave us advice that all of our members were tickety-boo as far as section 44 was concerned. I never heard what the lawyer said in detail but I supported what he said. Who gave us that advice? One of Melbourne’s top legal minds I understand, a fellow who dictated his opinion in colourful language while trying to fix his dodgy photocopier.
And it’s unfair to blame me for legal advice that turned out to be wrong. I’m just the Opposition Leader, and getting your head around the Constitution is pretty hard going for a layman like me. Well okay I am a lawyer, but no longer a practising one. As such I can hide behind feigned ignorance and say just this week: “We’ve seen the High Court making new decisions” and “We’ve seen the law evolve,” when in reality even a first year law student knows the court’s latest ruling was entirely consistent with precedent.
No doubt you also remember me saying in November that I was “very confident” about none of our members being caught up in the dual citizenship crises. I even gave a “rolled-gold” guarantee that was the case. Now let me just clarify that assurance. Before this crisis Labor had 95 representatives in Parliament. Of these, only five were found ineligible. This represents a section 44 compliance rate of nearly 95 per cent. In terms of gold purity, that’s well above the 22-carat mark, which is the second-best form of gold known to man. So I put it to you that my rolled-gold guarantee was spot-on.
I hope that explanation makes clear my position on this has been transparent from the start. Has anyone any questions – yes – who is the real Bill Shorten and what does he stand for today you ask? Well let me answer that with the lyrics of Ross Ryan: “I am Pegasus / My name means horse / And I can fly with you now / But I’ve changed my course / I am Michael / I am Jeffery and John.” Sing along with me, friends! “I am Simon / I am Demetrius and John”. I’m whatever you want me to be, folks, but remember tomorrow is another day.
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