Australia nationality crisis sparks call for lawmakers audit

SYDNEY: Australia’s dual citizenship parliamentary crisis deepened with a senior member of the ruling Liberal Party resigning, as calls grew for a nationality audit of all federal lawmakers and investigations continued into decisions made by ministers found to have been ineligible for their elected positions.

Australia’s High Court last Friday disqualified five lawmakers because they were citizens of both Australia and another country, a breach of an obscure clause in the constitution that only came to light in July. Two other parliamentarians had already resigned.

Yesterday, the saga claimed its first victim from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberal Party in Senator Stephen Parry.

Parry had on Tuesday contacted British Home Office officials, who a day later confirmed he held dual citizenship because his late father had been born in the United Kingdom, after which Parry resigned.

There had previously been disquiet concerning the issue between the Liberal Party and its junior coalition partner the National Party over the latter’s allegedly loose vetting systems on checking the nationality status of its electoral candidates. But not only is Parry the first Liberal Party member brought down in the crisis, he ranks as a party heavyweight, owing to his appointed position as president of the Senate, the upper house equivalent to the speaker of the lower chamber, the House of Representatives.

Parry wrote a letter to his fellow senators yesterday saying since the High Court’s ruling had clarified the application of the relevant section of the constitution, he would “submit my resignation as both president of the Senate and as a senator for Tasmania to his excellency the Governor-General tomorrow”.

Critics have condemned as outdat- ed the 116-year-old constitutional ban on lawmakers having dual citizenship in a country where almost half the people are immigrants or have an overseas-born parent.

Also yesterday, Liberal Party lawmaker Craig Kelly broke ranks with the government to support calls for the Australian Electoral Commission to audit the backgrounds of all federal lawmakers, as Acting Prime Minster Julie Bishop said she could not rule out more casualties.