POLLIE TICKLED: Duel in the crown

The Liberals and Labor are at 10 paces as the citizenship debacle rolls on.

voting. Picture: zhz_akey

Shock news: the Labor and Liberal parties agreed this week. But don't worry, they only agreed to mildly disagree about a citizenship register for MPs.

The deal would stand as long as they both disagreed strongly with that crazy idea of forcing an audit of all federal MPs.

Those pesky Greens want honest party politicians - an oxymoron if ever I saw one.

Turnbull channelled Trump to call such an audit a "witch hunt".

He thinks the High Court should deal with citizenship matters.

Of course they should, after all they would otherwise be sitting around doing nothing - they're such a bunch of layabouts. Oh sorry, that's politicians, not judges.

And of course, the High Court is cheap - you can get at least six big cases for the cost of a useless plebiscite.

Maybe instead voters should grab a few cases from the local bottle-o and decide it on a virtual barbie on Facebook. Cheaper than a plebiscite or High Court case.

But Shorten had it solved - all MPs would take part in "a universal disclosure to the Parliament".

He called on all parties to work out a process that restores voters' confidence in Parliament.

The simplest way some MPs could restore confidence in Parliament would be to resign.

If all MPs with no credibility quit as a group, some sleeping voters might wake up and cast conscious votes and make some demands of pollies.

You know - truth, commitment and, most importantly, freedom from party politics on issues that matter. Turnbull still believes MPs should simply self-report.

Always works a treat. Pollies are so good at it.

Putting the onus on each politician worked well with Joyce and others, why not try it again?

And it works so well with asset registers, use of a helicopter to walk the dog to the nearest tax haven etc.

And when the federal director told Turnbull all the Liberal MPs believed they were in compliance with the Constitution, Turnbull believed him.

John Alexander soon showed how gullible the PM was when he came out with "I am still of the view that I am solely an Australian citizen" as he waited for UK authorities to clarify his citizenship status.

If he is a dual citizen, it would temporarily destroy the government's majority that only exists now if the Speaker uses his casting vote to break a tie.

How many dual citizens does it take to force a general election? We could be about to find out. Turnbull's main aim is to delay any election into next year.

Just imagine the electors in New England. They voted Joyce in on July 2 last year only to find he was ineligible.

Next month's by-election will return him or someone else and then in maybe March a fresh general election could have him stand again.

Joyce could be the most elected politician the country has ever had. Or the most rejected.

Tony Abbott has seized the day and returned to his true calling.

He wants to end the "citizenship circus in Canberra". So, as politicians slowly inform us that they will be getting in a leaky boat to an overseas destination supposedly unknown to them, Abbott has restored his old war cry and feels useful again.

Tourists regularly report he's standing on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin shouting: "Stop the boats!"

Pollie Tickled is a satirical column.

Originally published as POLLIE TICKLED: Duel in the crown