Bill outruns PM in citizen shame

YES, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has been weak in this citizenship crisis. But Bill Shorten has been worse — not weak, but utterly shameless.

So why is the Labor leader praised for playing “hardball” when he should be savaged for his cynicism?

Shorten is plainly hiding Labor frauds — MPs with dual citizenship who have no right to sit in parliament — and is treating the public like idiots who don’t deserve a straight answer.

Worse, he last week asked the Liberals to join a mutual protection racket to subvert our Constitution’s ban on federal politicians holding citizenship of foreign countries.

If Turnbull’s dying leadership wasn’t now the big media story, Shorten’s conniving and conspiring surely would be.

Yes, the Turnbull Government has been slow to confess to having dual citizens in its ranks. But confess it has, leaving it crippled by the loss of four members already — and its majority in parliament.

Backbencher John Alexander quit last week after admitting he was British. Senate president Stephen Parry confessed and resigned a fortnight ago.

Before them, deputy Nationals leader Fiona Nash volunteered that she, too, was British.

Only deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce was exposed by others as a dual citizen, and has since been thrown out of parliament by the High Court, which also dumped Nash.

So that’s three Coalition MPs who outed themselves, albeit after some media prompting in Alexander’s case, and two who resigned of their own accord.

At least give the Coalition credit for copping its whack.

But look at Labor. Its own behaviour has been secretive, squalid, and even sinister.

Remember Shorten boasting that Labor was not like the Nationals, Greens, One Nation and the Liberals — all of whom have now lost MPs who were dual citizens?

“Labor has the strictest vetting processes — we’ve got nothing to fear from greater transparency and disclosure,” he claimed.

But that has turned out to be bluster.

A whole raft of Labor politicians now have serious questions over their citizenship status, including Justine Keay,

Susan Lamb, Tony Zappia, Maria Vamvakinou, Katy Gallagher, David

Feeney, Brendan O’Connor, Penny Wong,

Doug Cameron, Brian Mitchell and Josh

Wilson.

But note the difference.

Not a single one of those Labor MPs has confessed and resigned.

Not one. Shorten also refuses to release evidence to prove that those MPs renounced any dual citizenship and are legally entitled to be in parliament.

“MPs and senators should not be forced to produce evidence to counter-claims that are made completely without evidence,” he sniffed, when there is at least some evidence suggesting his MPs have questions to answer.

This is extraordinary. This is Shorten telling you that the right of Labor MPs to sit in parliament is for him to know and voters to find out. They will only confess if we catch them. And bugger the Constitution. Shorten won’t even commit to referring Keay to the High Court, despite her finally conceding she didn’t get her British citizenship renounced until a week after last year’s election, and a month after the deadline for candidate nominations. He blusters that Keay and other MPs such as Susan Lamb took “reasonable steps” to renounce their dual citizenship in time, and that’s enough. But the High Court is highly unlikely to buy such an excuse from politicians who simply waited far too long to get cracking with the paperwork. Shorten’s hypocrisy is so brazen. In public, he declared: “There can be no arrangement worth striking unless it is fully transparent, unless it’s fair dinkum, unless it satisfies the Australian people that there are no remaining clouds over the eligibility of parliamentarians to sit in parliament.”

But in his letter to Turnbull, Shorten asked for a deal where Labor and the Liberals would send doubtful MPs to the High Court for judgment only when both parties agreed — a classic mutual protection racket by the big parties.

“There should be no partisan referrals,” Shorten wrote.

“No party should abuse its numbers, in either chamber of the parliament, to unilaterally refer senators or members.”

Turnbull was right to immediately reject this outrageous demand as “unworthy”.

It is one of his few right calls in this whole mess, which now threatens to topple his government.

But if Turnbull has dithered, Shorten has subverted.

One man here is acting dishonourably, and the bad news is that it’s not our current Prime Minister but our next one.

If Shorten bends our rules to serve himself in Opposition, what on earth will he do in government?