Third minister ‘may be British’

Another Aussie lawmaker in a bind over dual citizenship

CANBERRA: A third Australian government minister revealed she might have been unlawfully elected to Parliament because of a constitutional ban on dual citizens that has snared six lawmakers since July in an unprecedented political crisis.

Fiona Nash, deputy leader of the Nationals junior coalition party, told the Senate she had been advised that she may be British because of her Scottish father. But Nash said she would not step down as a Cabinet minister until the High Court ruled whether she should be disqualified.

The 116-year-old section of the constitution that bans dual nationals is taking an extraordinary toll on the finely balanced Parliament elected in July last year. Before the careers of six lawmakers ended or came under threat since July, only two elected dual nationals were ever caught since 1901.

Media started digging into the family histories of Australia’s 226 federal lawmakers after minor Greens party deputy leader Sen Scott Ludlam revealed on July 14 that he was a New Zealand citizen who had been illegally elected three times over the past nine years.

Critics of the constitutional rule argue it no longer suits the modern multicultural Australia, in which almost half the population was born overseas or has at least one overseas-born parent.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, the Nationals leader, told Parliament on Monday that he had recently discovered he was a New Zealander through descent from his New Zealand-born father.

If Joyce was disqualified, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s centre-right government could lose its single-seat majority in the House of Representatives where parties need a majority to govern. The other five lawmakers are senators who if disqualified would be replaced by members of their own parties.

Joyce accepted the resources portfolio from Cabinet colleague Matt Canavan when he stepped down as a minister on July 25 as he revealed his mother applied for his Italian citizenship without his permission when he was aged 25.