Roberts tells court he is still unclear about past citizenship

AUSTRALIA: One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts has told the High Court his citizenship history still isn’t clear, despite evidence showing he was a citizen of both India and Great Britain.

The Queensland senator is being cross-examined by government lawyers over his dual citizenship, which federal politicians are barred from holding under the Australian constitution.

Roberts told the court yesterday he was still not clear on which citizenships he had held in the past, despite his lawyer Robert Newlinds accepting he was a British citizen by descent.

‘‘I’m still not clear of my citizenship in the past,’’ Roberts said.

’’I haven’t read the expert report, but in all my dealings with the British government it is still not clear that I have had citizenship.’’

Roberts was born to an Australian mother and Welsh father in India in 1955 and has previously claimed he believed he had never held any citizenships other than Australian.

The court heard an expert in Indian law found Roberts would have been an Indian citizen by birth but lost it after he took Australian citizenship at 19. Roberts said he believed he was Australian because that’s the way his family treated him and that he travelled on his mother’s Australian passport when he was a child.

‘‘It would have been my firm belief at that time that I did not have citizenship of another country.’’

His comments came after the court heard Roberts sent an email renouncing his British citizenship to two incorrect email addresses in May.

Senator Roberts has previously stated he sent two emails to the British consulate on May 1 and June 6, 2016 to renounce his British citizenship.

But the court was told yesterday the email addresses those messages were sent to were invalid, with one decommissioned in 2010 and the other simply incorrect.

A third email address used for the second message, however, was valid and correct.

The court heard Roberts found the email addresses ‘‘from his research on the internet’’.

Roberts is one of eight MPs from across the political spectrum recently caught out by the constitutional rule barring federal politicians from holding dual citizenship.

"I haven't read the expert report, but in all my dealings with the British government it is still not clear that I have had citizenship."

Malcolm Roberts. One Nations senator