Senators face citizenship test in order to keep seats

CANBERRA, Australia — All Australian senators have three weeks to prove they were not foreign nationals when elected under an agreement the major political parties reached Monday to resolve a deepening citizenship crisis that could upend the government.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s conservative coalition could lose two seats at by-elections next month after lawmaker John Alexander on Saturday resigned from Parliament because he had likely inherited British citizenship from his English-born father.

Australia is rare if not unique in the world in banning dual nationals from sitting in Parliament. Pressure is growing to reform the 116year-old constitution amid the growing uncertainty over how many by-elections might result from the current crisis and which party might end up forming a government.

Turnbull’s conservathey tive Liberal Party and the center-left opposition Labor Party agreed to set a Dec. 1 deadline for senators to provide documented evidence that they are solely Australian citizens. Australian-born lawmakers will have to provide details of their parents and grandparents’ dates and countries of birth to demonstrate that they have not inherited a second nationality. Immigrant lawmakers must document steps they have taken to renounce their original nationalities.

Acting Prime Minister Julie Bishop said she expected the House of Representatives would endorse a similar citizenship registry when it next sits on Nov. 27.

Turnbull said he would have preferred if the High Court had accepted the government’s argument last month that ignorance of a second nationality should be an excuse for breaching a ban on dual citizens that was designed to exclude lawmakers with divided loyalties.

“I would’ve preferred took a different approach,” Turnbull told reporters in the Philippines where he attended a Pacific Rim leaders summit. “But what they say is the law and our job now is to comply with it and what we are doing is going through a process that will enable everybody to put all the relevant facts on the line.”

Any lawmakers who remain under a cloud after declaring their citizenship status would be referred to the High Court to decide whether they were legally elected. A series of by-elections that could change the government could be scheduled for a single weekend early next year.

The dual citizenship ban was a rare issue until recently, but the High Court last month disqualified five lawmakers, including Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, in a rejection of the government’s argument that ignorance of an inherited nationality was an acceptable excuse.