Citizens of cloud-cuckoo land
THE howling gibbons in Federal Parliament have a fortnight’s break to calm down, guzzle camomile tea until their eyes bleed and seriously consider how their grandstanding is driving this country off a cliff.
Canberra’s most recent extraordinarily embarrassing sitting week was capped off with blunt instrument Pauline Hanson turning up in a burqa and Nationals Deputy Leader Fiona Nash revealing her shallow ties to the deep Loch Ness.
A quick recap: Barnaby Joyce and Scott Ludlam are sheep shaggers, Matt Canavan makes his own pasta, Larissa Waters taps maple syrup straight from the source and Malcolm Roberts, despite all appearances of being from a planet far, far away, is (or was) Welsh.
And those are just the ones we know about.
Now Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch has dropped his own citizenship bombshell and, by the bizarre pseudo-logic currently swallowing every last skerrick of parliamentary debate, really should refer himself to the High Court.
Mr Entsch told the Cairns Post he is the product of a direct paternal line to a German immigrant who arrived in Australia in 1842.
Germany operates on a system of jus sanguinis, meaning citizenship is passed on from generation to generation by birth so long as the parent still retains German citizenship when the child’s noggin crowns.
Short of actively seeking out 175 years of family history, Mr Entsch cannot definitely prove he is not entitled to German citizenship – even though he has made no effort whatsoever to gain it.
It is unfathomable that he is alone among those members of parliament, including the ones saddled up on Labor’s high horse, who are yet to declare their potential diluted and accidental allegiance to a foreign land.
It also makes me wonder if I am an Italian and therefore European Union citizen, and entitled to a refund on the visa fees required when I visi- ted the Big Boot after high school.
My great-great grandfather was an Italian immigrant, who had a son, who had a son, who had a son, who had a Chris Calcino – a one-sixteenth spaghetti-sucker with a decidedly woggy name.
Short of deep research, I have no idea if I am entitled to a second passport.
Mr Entsch had another interesting observation.
It is not the fact these MPs are foreign citizens, necessarily – in several cases it just comes down to their ability to apply for citizenship if they were so inclined.
Business Insider last month listed 17 countries where you can buy a legitimate foreign passport if you have the cash.
Thailand offers “elite residency” for about $20,000, Latvia for $90,000 or so, and a $125,000 donation will earn you a passport from Eastern Caribbean sovereign island country, St Lucia.
Even Australia has a residency program that can lead to citizenship in the long-term if you have a net worth of at least $2.25 million and invest $1.5 million into a project or business that will benefit the national economy.
“There are lots of other countries where I can go out and write a cheque and they will write me a citizenship,” Mr Entsch said.
“Even if I was a traditional, fullblood Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person living in Australia, I’ve still got access to another citizenship by writing a cheque.” Which brings us to another point. Indigenous members of parliament Pat Dodson, Linda Burney and Malarndirri McCarthy must have European blood somewhere in their ancestry.
Imagine how offensive it would be to ask them to dig through their family backgrounds to prove they are, in fact, Australian.
The High Court will likely determine what happens with this whole mess next month, and no doubt the list of MPs it investigates will have lengthened by then.
In the meantime, politicians should get on with the job of debating important legislation about the NDIS, veterans’ affairs and the Medicare levy instead of acting like drongos to score cheap points. Wishful thinking. I half expect someone to turn up in the senate wearing a Ku Klux Klan robes, just for shock value.