Citizenship of Parliamentarians, foreign political donations and same-sex marriage were the topics front and centre during Monday night’s Q&A panel discussion.
With the revelation on Monday that Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister is in fact a New Zealand citizen, there was little surprise that much of the early discussion focussed on whether Barnaby Joyce should resign.
While Section 44 of Australia’s constitution disqualifies someone from office if they are a citizen of another country, citizenship expert Kim Rubenstein stopped short of saying Mr Joyce was breaking the law in his role as Deputy Prime Minister.
“There’s an interesting distinction between the notion of breaking the law and acting unlawfully, a distinction which is in terms of knowledge of that unlawful reality, as opposed to acting intention,” she said.
Currently, the High Court’s position is that a person must take all reasonable steps to divest themselves of foreign citizenship.
“What was reasonable on behalf of these individuals who are saying they didn’t know they were citizens of another country?” Professor Rubenstein asked.
“I think it begs a question of how reasonable is it for someone who was either born in another country, or has a parent or grandparent from another country not to have at least inquired and followed that up?”
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