So what about Sephardis’ right to Spanish citizenship? The law doesn’t automatically grant it to any Jew with a Pérez lastname, but if you have proof of Sephardi ancestry the paperwork to claim citizenship is pretty straighforward.
Same for grandchildren of emigrants. Lots of sheep over there, right?
I mean, I expect that having “the never-used right to be recognized as a citizen” wouldn’t be a problem so long as all people involved are rational, but excuse me if I’m not feeling very confident about the requirement lately.
I agree a re-write would be preferable, but my understanding is that requires a referendum and those don’t have a good history of succeeding in Australia (pretty sure the last one to pass was the one that was about casual senate vacancies and that was 40 years ago).
While saying “Commonwealth countries with QEII as head of state are not “foreign powers” for purposes of s44” wouldn’t help Mr Canavan, I think it’d at least be a step in the right direction and when people start saying “Well hang on, that’s not fair on this woman whose mum is from Vanuatu or this bloke who technically has Chinese citizenship because his Dad was born in Hong Kong the day after the handover”, then it puts things on a stronger footing for the “Remove it from the Constitution completely” referendum.
It isn’t going to happen. The Hill decision was IMHO obviously correct and at worst competely rationally justifiable, and it would take a breathtakingly bold HC to overturn it with the sort of judicial legislating that you propose.
I’m not disagreeing (except on the correctness of the Hill decision), but the only other solution is either an unlikely-to-pass referendum or large chunks of Australia being unable to serve in the Commonwealth Parliament because their parents are from somewhere else.
Another solution is that people who run for parliament will, in the future, be much more careful to check on their citizenship status. Every single parliamentarian who has been outed in this debacle could have taken steps that would have allowed them to be properly elected to the parliament.
Not one of them was disqualified by s44 from running; they were simply disqualified from running if they failed to renounce the other national citizenships. Renouncing other citizenships is, for the most part, a pretty easy and straightforward thing to do. And, as i said way back near the start of this thread, if i were running for the Australian parliament, i would have done my due diligence regarding my status in the first place.
I’m not disagreeing with you - were I running for parliament (I can’t, but let’s play hypotheticals here) then I’d also check.
But I think the “no foreign citizenship” requirement is unfair in the modern era and would like to see it amended, especially because so many Australians are from somewhere else.
So we’ve had, by my count, 2 Greens, a Liberal, 2 Nats and a One Nationer so far caught up in this Charlie Foxtrot.
If we don’t get any Labor pollies involved within a couple of weeks I think we’ll need to conclude either that they’re the only party in the country with organisational skills sufficient for a piss-up at a brewery or that they were the ones behind the pot-stirring in the first place.
Labor say quite confidently that they have good vetting processes and the Libs don’t and that they are simply not at risk. A bold statement given the sheer volume of egg on formerly smug politicians’ faces at the moment, but so far, Labor’s confidence seems to be justified.
You would have to assume that for the last couple of weeks the Libs have been researching the nationality of ever Labor member like hamsters on speed, except with more desperation, and if they haven’t found anything yet…
I read the other day that the Labor party asks their candidates about family nationality back to and including grandparents before selection so they can deal with just this requirement. If true it looks like they have themselves covered but it wouldn’t be a big surprise if someone slipped through the cracks.
One interesting difference in all of this is that the Greens senators immediately resigned, while the coalition members are hanging on and hoping for a Court reprieve.
I honestly think the Greens members were wrong to immediately resign (except the chap from NZ, he probably should have known better) and don’t see any issues with the coalition members taking the matter to the High Court. Seems like a good way to get some clarity around the issue to me.
My quibble with this interpretation, if I may butt in, is that India was at that time in the Commonwealth.
Just to go back a step:
In 1900 Australia had wanted to enshrine the White Australia Policy into law in a very rigid way. (You’re not white? You will not be allowed to enter or settle in Australia. Much like Manus Island…sorry, I digress.)
The British government of the day, under pressure from India, said this would not be a very welcome law, and instead suggested the law that eventually was passed, which was instead a requirement to read words in a European language. You’re white, you get English. You’re not? Scottish Gaelic for you.
This is why I think that the Constitution very specifically does NOT mean Commonwealth citizens; who at the time would be citizens of the Empire. Many of them, in the 1890s - 1900, were specifically not white. They were not welcome in Australia, although there was no formal White Australia policy at the time, it was literally one of the first laws passed in the first sitting of Parliament. It included some Pacific Islands, and Australia unequivocally did not want them. the only reason India was able to complain was it had a lot of political power in the Empire at the time.
So whilst I see your argument, I don’t think that 1900s era Australians wanted a bar of anybody not white in the Senate, and this included many subjects of the Queen (Victoria, well, barely) at the time.
India is still in the Commonwealth - they don’t recognise QEII as head of state (being a republic) but they do recognise her as head of the Commonwealth, which was some sort of compromise worked out for relatively obvious reasons.
You’re right that Australia had an unfortunate “No coloured people” policy pretty much from its inception up until the 1970s, and 1900 Australia definitely wouldn’t have wanted any of them in parliament - I’ve always thought the “European languages” thing was particularly devious, especially as it could also be used on white English speakers the Government didn’t want in the country.
“Oh, so you’re a white Bolshevist from Manchester? Sure, you can move here. Just complete this language test in Basque.”
Which is precisely what the High Court did, and it ruled those who had citizenship with a “foreign power” were ineligible, precisely IMHO as it should.
We now have a hung parliament, and given the Speaker is a LIB a minority government. Immediate chaos is not expected as, unless Barnaby loses the by-election with his NZ credentials formally rescinded, there won’t be a change of government.
There is plenty of conjecture about the legitimacy of all manner of parliamentary activities passed by one vote during this term.
Who needs a barrel of monkeys for amusement when we have this?
