Citizenship

THE current dual citizenship problem that is decimating our government appears to be wasting an awful lot of time and money not to mention destabilising our current minority government.

I think most people knew that you needed to be a citizen of this country to be able to vote and certainly run for public office but I doubt many realised that having dual citizenship precluded you from serving. Perhaps a rather less known part of the constitution.

Nevertheless, having lived here for 30 years and holding dual citizenship I cannot see why this should make you any less deserved or committed to serving either country if you want to. The laws of many countries continue to allow dual or more citizenship and Australia being built on migrants is obviously going to have a multitude of nationalities arriving here and contributing to our society. So once they choose to naturalise after two years and become a citizen I feel they are as Australian as anyone else.

Keeping the other passport is really just an advantage when we travel to Europe so we do not have to join the long queue with the “others”.

As for some of these outed politicians I don’t buy the “mum and dad never told me” line. That is a ridiculous excuse. Discussions around the dinner table as a family would have explained this. We all know our heritage.

So let’s get this constitutional anomaly changed. It is hard enough to attract quality people to public service without this “nothing” issue. — ANDREW CIVIL, Mt Lofty