The High Court brought down its momentous ruling on the “citizenship seven” early this afternoon, which has resulted in four Senators (Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam of the Greens, Fiona Nash of the Nationals and Malcolm Roberts of One Nation) and one member of the House of Representatives (Barnaby Joyce) losing their seats. Not disqualified are Nationals Senator Matt Canavan and Senator Nick Xenophon, the latter of whom will shortly be leaving anyway. The full judgement can be read here.
Broadly speaking, the court’s unanimous decision has been to take a black-letter, conservative approach to the meaning of the section, and accept the reasoning established by the court in the Sykes v Cleary ruling in 1992. It has rejected the dissenting opinion of Justice William Deane in Sykes v Cleary, who argued the second limb of the section 44(i), ensnaring any person who is “a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power”, should be understood to apply only where such rights have been actively acknowledged. As such, the court rejected various shades of argument that it was unreasonable to expect members should divest themselves of citizenship rights they do not realise they possess.
Since the court’s ruling is that the five members are retroactively disqualified from running at last year’s election, their positions will be filled by countbacks in the case of the four Senators, and by a by-election in the case of Barnaby Joyce and his seat of New England. There appears to be no reason at law why disqualified Senators could not recover their seats if their replacements agree to resign and their parties choose them to fill the resulting casual vacancy, provided they have resolved their citizenship issues in the interim. However, in none of the cases does it appear that this will happen.
To consider their circumstances in turn:
Barnaby Joyce
Most importantly, the government is now down a Deputy Prime Minister, after the court found nothing to complicate Barnaby Joyce’s status as a dual citizen of New Zealand acquired through his father. Joyce must re-contest his seat at a by-election in his seat of New England in northern New South Wales. It appears to have been agreed within the government that this will take place as soon as possible, on December 2. For now it will suffice to observe that Labor last held the seat in 1913, and has not come close to doing so in living memory. If a threat should loom to Joyce, it would appear more likely to come from an independent or minor party candidate. One of the former might be Tony Windsor, the independent member from the seat from 2001 to 2013, who fell 8.5% short of unseating Joyce in 2016 (UPDATE: Windsor has ruled this out). It should also be noted that Shooters Fishers and Farmers have polled strongly in three recent state by-elections, including a victory in the seat of Orange last year. It was presumably aided by the fact that One Nation is not officially registered at state level, a circumstance that does not apply at federal level. Ladbrokes is offering two betting options: $1.13 on Barnaby Joyce, and $5 on One Nation. Obviously a lot more will be said about this in weeks to come.
Fiona Nash
The court found nothing to complicate the fact that Nash is a dual British citizen through her Scottish-born father, which she had done nothing to renounce. The recount for her New South Wales seat makes life complicated for the Coalition in that it stands to elect a Liberal, Hollie Hughes, in place of a National.
Malcolm Roberts
Perhaps the least surprising aspect of the ruling was that Malcolm Roberts, who was born in India and did not properly renounce his British citizenship until six months after he was elected. The recount to replace him will elect Fraser Anning, about whom not much is known except that is a hotel owner from a farming background. Anning’s own eligibility appeared under a cloud due to bankruptcy proceedings but these were resolved early this month. Had it been otherwise, it would have been the fourth candidate on the One Nation who would have come into contention: Judy Smith, sister of Pauline Hanson. Suggestions that Roberts might find a way back to the Senate through the back door have been scotched by a media release on a party letterhead from Anning in which he is strongly critical of Roberts and others caught up in the controversy, and says he is “very much looking forward to being a Senator”. Roberts now says he plans to run at the looming Queensland state election.
Scott Ludlam
Here the situation was straightforward: Scott Ludlam was clearly a citizen of New Zealand, and hence ineligible under the first limb of Section 44(i). It appears to have been resolved that the Greens will accept the outcome of the recount process, which will deliver his Western Australian seat to the party’s number three candidate at last year’s double dissolution, 23-year-old disability advocate Jordon Steele-John.
Larissa Waters
The court also ruled that there was nothing to complicate the provision of Canadian nationality law that persons born in the country become citizens, and that her failure to renounce this citizenship rendered her ineligible. The recount will elect Andrew Bartlett, who held a Queensland Senate seat for the Australian Democrats from 1997 to 2008, and led the party in its terminal phase from 2004 to 2008.
Matt Canavan
Matt Canavan is off the hook because the court deemed he was not an Italian citizen. His difficulty related to the fact that he was included in a register of Italian residents abroad after his mother registered for citizenship and listed her children in the application form — which, among other things, entitled him to vote in Italian elections. However, Canavan never applied to become an Italian citizen, and the court was not of the view that the official status granted through this process amounted merely a “declaratory” acknowledgement of a status that existed in any case. The court has apparently opted to take a narrow view of the second limb of the sub-section, with his voting rights not deemed to make him “entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen”.
Nick Xenophon
Nick Xenophon has the status of a “British overseas citizen” through is Greek Cypriot father, by virtue of him having been born in a country that was a British colony at the time but has ceased to be so. The court ruled that this status does not amount to citizenship, or entitle him to the rights or privileges thereof, as it does not entail right of abode in the United Kingdom, nor entail a pledge of loyalty to it.
grimace @ #742 Saturday, October 28th, 2017 – 10:53 pm
Double down, Grimace!
The Coalition may hold the purse strings but Labor can promise a better, more enduring quality of life for your constituents. All the Liberals do is splash around the cash, which eventually ends up in their mates’ pockets. Not the average punters’.
Swamp
Hear hear.
I like you Scottish “obsession. I am a bit of a Scots nationalist myself – I blame Mac from the Argonauts.
They often seemed to run Scottish serials in that program. Propaganda eh what!
I live in a safe “Liberal” seat. The only time I saw my local member out and about (then Joe Hockey) was at the local railway station in the run-up to the 2007 election. That election didn’t work out well for the “Liberals”.
victoria @ #730 Saturday, October 28th, 2017 – 10:04 pm
You might be interested in reading this:
Talking Points Brought to Trump Tower Meeting Were Shared With Kremlin
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/us/politics/trump-tower-veselnitskaya-russia.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
I live in a very safe Labor seat. My current member has been in Parliament since 2010.
I’ve never seen him in the flesh.
C@t
Yes. This information was confirmed by one of the panelists on CNN today whilst discussing the breaking news of indictments
C@ / vic
Was this the meeting that was supposed to be about child adoption?
swamprat @ #739 Saturday, October 28th, 2017 – 10:33 pm
Huh? Name them? The comments on here about the US usually express varying degrees of horror.
been in a fed electorate with a Lib MP for as long as I can I remember …. all of a sudden she’s acting Prime Minister.
CTar1 @ #751 Saturday, October 28th, 2017 – 11:09 pm
That was the pretext. However the substance was an interesting take Russia had on William Browder and the Ziff Brothers, who had invested in Russia, were big Democrat donors, and who Russia accused of avoiding paying their taxes. Ergo, corrupt connection to the Clintons via a very long bow.
Truth be told, they probably didn’t pay enough in bribes to the right people.
Interestingly, Donald Trump Jr smelt a rat.
Ctar1
Yes. That was the excuse they came up with
Roger Miller @ #753 Saturday, October 28th, 2017 – 11:12 pm
The way she got there is the only way she would ever get there, to boot!
Hey Rossmore, what electorate are you in?
I thought you were somewhere down on the bay and was not aware of any marginals down that way.
In Victoria, I would like to see us win back Chisholm, Latrobe and Corangamite.
It would be nice to also pick up Dunkley.
And to really make my day, I would like to see the last of Sukkar in Deakin.
vic / C@
Ta. Thought I remembered the meeting.
I think the famous ‘server’ that was supposed to be communicating with a Russian Govt backed ‘bank’ was said to have been located in a room next door to where the meeting was held.
bemused
You wouldn’t be alone in that.
Daniel Andrews would think all his Christmases had come at once if he could see Hunt, Sukkar and Tudge all go down. 😀
Holy hell, DTT. You are really in cloud cuckoo land. Some impressive, self-deluded mental gymnastics to arrive at those conclusions. It must be exhausting to keep that up.
victoria @ #750 Saturday, October 28th, 2017 – 11:05 pm
It was the back story about the Ziff Brothers and William Browder that I found new and interesting.
C@tmomma
“Have you ever thought that the USA is about 100 times the size and importance of your beloved Scotland? That maybe we are interested in a venal and corrupt President of the USA for that sake predominantly?
I doubt it. So fixated are you about Scotland and it’s importance.”
———–
I could not illustrate better the shallowness of many Australian so called “intellectuals” and the sad state of the ALP, overtaken as it is by vacouos liberals who confuse their “liberalism” with being left.
Spare-us. that pious wank.
The USA is NOT Australia’s future.
The USA has only the importance that shallow thinkers like you (and Murdoch, and the LNP/ALP) give to it.
That you think the significance of a country has to do with its “size and importance” which outweighs its immorality, imperial bullyism, lack of intelligence, disrepect for human rights or its un-democratic practices, reflects more on you than on the USofA.
The closer Australia has become to the USA, the more right-wing, neo-liberal, anti-socialist it has become.
I lament that.
The fact the the ALP has become just another capitalist supporting mildly “liberal” party, (except not very liberal for gays).
I lament that.
I am interested in Scotland mainly because i am interested in self-determination, as well as ancestral conections.
I also use it to insert (in this yankee obsessed blog) an example of a country (small and not “important”) that is streets ahead of your USA in terms of human rights, equality, serious attempts at inclusion and democracy.
I am also pre-occupied with the rights of East Timorese, Tibetans, West Papuans and others.
People, like the East Timorese, that the hard gimlet eyed right wing bastards, like you, who run the cynical outfit which is the contemporary ALP scoff at because they are not BIG in “size or importance”.
To quote bemused, i have always wondered why you yankee obsessives do not move to Alabama or Texas or whereever you can feel more comfortable with BIGNESS and, in your eyes, IMPORTANCE.
Ctar1
Either next door or close by in the building.
This famous server is in part what cemented investgation of this imbroglio.
Whilst special counsel Mueller has been investigating since May. Intelligence agencies have been on the case for over a year and the server in question was top of mind
CTar1 @ #760 Saturday, October 28th, 2017 – 11:24 pm
Labor has held all of their seats at some stage.
Tudge’s predecessors in Aston were fairly innocuous so maybe he has generated enough animosity to produce a larger swing.
Sukkar is just self evidently obnoxious and must surely be pissing off a lot of his electorate with his arrogance.
Hunt is a tough one. He has got away with his lying for so long that he appears to be teflon coated.
swamprat @ #763 Saturday, October 28th, 2017 – 11:25 pm
So ratty, with all that diatribe at C@t, what’s holding you back from being off to Scotland ASAP?
Why aren’t you already there?
Australia is so terrible with such terrible political parties and Scotland is just wonderful.
Off you go now.
daretotread
Briefly
Give over that absurd nonsense.
The hacking is on auto-pilot for you, dtt…sorry, I think it may be incurable
Bemused
“So ratty, with all that diatribe at C@t, what’s holding you back from being off to Scotland ASAP?
Why aren’t you already there?
Australia is so terrible with such terrible political parties and Scotland is just wonderful.
Off you go now.”
———
It is typical of “liberals”, surely the bye word for hypocracy, to silence opponents by wanting to expell them from their country of birth.
Even Dutton has not advocated that, yet.
No Charles
No mental gymnastics needed. It is the rest of the ostriches that need to gymnastics to keep their heads in the sand.
I suggest you actually find the factual or logical errors in what I wrote. Then come back to me.
bemused
Hunt would be to much to hope for, I’d say.
Lots of property developers ‘support’ available to him.
swamprat @ #769 Saturday, October 28th, 2017 – 11:36 pm
Oh no ratty, I don’t want to silence you.
I want you to be happy in Scotland where you can continuously proclaim the magnificence of Scotland until even the Scots get sick of it.
dtt….the Russian State is not communist. It is martial. It is authoritarian and secretive. It is neo-Imperialist. It is corrupt and despotic. It is expansionist and it is prepared to use force.
Swamp
I applaud your sentiments, but I do think the USA is more important to us here in Australia if only because most of the population including the ALP and 90% of the people on this so called Left blog are into brown tonguing the USA .
Also the USA is a nuclear power and one keen to use their military everywhere. They have many bases here in Australai so that should there be a hot war we become targets.
I agree that in social and moral terms and in everything the ALP holds dear, Scotland is a modle to follow, rather than venal, corrupt USA, but until the day the world defangs the monster, it is pretty important.
swamp…don’t go!!!
CTar1 @ #771 Saturday, October 28th, 2017 – 11:41 pm
His electorate obviously tolerates his conduct and lying so I think you are right.
bemused
“Huh? Name them? The comments on here about the US usually express varying degrees of horror.”
—-
obsession does not exclude horror. Indeed horror at irrelevant events in another country actually reflect obsession.
swamprat
Bemused
“So ratty, with all that diatribe at C@t, what’s holding you back from being off to Scotland ASAP?
Why aren’t you already there?
Australia is so terrible with such terrible political parties and Scotland is just wonderful.
Off you go now.”
———
It is typical of “liberals”, surely the bye word for hypocracy, to silence opponents by wanting to expell them from their country of birth.
Even Dutton has not advocated that, yet.
Abbott has. He wants to be able to render his enemies stateless, to send them into oblivion. He’s part of the way towards achieving this.
Briefly….the USA State is not communist. It is martial. It is increasingly authoritarian and secretive. It is Imperialist with 800 bases outside its own borders. It is corrupt and increasingly despotic. It is expansionist and it frequently and habitually uses force.
swamprat,
What a load of garbage.
I will take but one of your false assertions about me, and by extension the Labor Party. So, if you knew anything at all about the work of the Labor Party, or myself, with the East Timorese, you would know that I have known Shirley Shackleton for about 30 or more years. Also you would know that one of my best friends goes with her husband every year, if possible, to East Timor, to perform free dental work for the East Timorese and to take them all sorts of items that are cheap here but expensive there, like books, pens and pencils for the children to use in school.
But then, you don’t know that, among many other things about me and the ALP, and so you come on here and you hurl abuse around about us like you are someone whose ‘Right on!’ character cannot be challenged, and you think it gives you the unalloyed right to abuse us here, and the ALP, for not being as ‘Right on!’ as you are.
When, in fact, all you are is a blinkered little piss pot who cannot see the wood for the trees when it comes to global geopolitics. You think that the future is a collection of ‘Right on, brothers in arms!’ little nation states like Catalonia and Scotland, who can’t even get it together to get a Referendum vote together successfully and then follow it up with real action to establish themselves as functioning entities.
Not to mention the fact that you perennially ignore the abject failure of Communism in the 20th century, as it seemed so magical to types like you but in practice just turned out to be yet another flavour of State repression of the populace. Swept away, as it was, as soon as the people could find a way to do it successfully.
So, spare me your sanctimony, swamprat. Your judgement sucks and you don’t have a clue about the real world. You live in la la land. Or is it SA SA(Socialist Alternative) Land? Whatever. They are both the same unrealistic alternatives proposed by bourgeois Lefty types from first world countries, such as yourself. And I ain’t buying the goods you are selling. Okay?
daretotread
Briefly….the USA State is not communist. It is martial. It is increasingly authoritarian and secretive. It is Imperialist with 800 bases outside its own borders. It is corrupt and increasingly despotic. It is expansionist and it frequently and habitually uses force.
I agree. The tendencies have become more pronounced with the ascent of Trump, who is actually demented. We have two powers who intrigue at the expense of the rest of us.
C@tmomma,
I am not trying to “sell you goods”. (God you love the market, don’t you).
I was just trying to defend myself against your (what i consider is immoral) garbage that “size” and “importance” matter.
And, swamprat, no one wants to kick you out of Australia, you alarmist little nong. The reasonable question was simply put to you that, if you love Scotland, and hate Australia, so much, why haven’t you emigrated there? Centre of the universe as it seems to be to you.
Nonetheless, dtt….it remains the case that you have been hacked. The memes you run with…the Hillary-junk, the US debt-junk, the nuclear trivia….these are the junk of Russian propaganda. You have been played.
I am not trying to “sell you goods”. (God you love the market, don’t you).
And you are a spigot for garbage, swamprat.
For someone who ‘loves the market’ so much (and your alternative, is?), I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up a blind alley, so determined was I not to be consumed in life by the avarice and greed that true ‘lovers’ of the market practice. To the extent that I have very few possessions and would give someone the shirt off my back if they asked for it. But as a no mark, know nothing, you would never lower yourself to believe that. It doesn’t fit your narrative about me. Which is why I can so confidently ignore you.
C@tmomma
“and hate Australia, so much”
———
Why do you equate a hatred for the right wing liberals that are fucking up this country and burying us up the arse of the USA, with a hatred of Australia???
I want to protect Australia from your kind.
Though it is typical, goes back to the Rum Corps, that the ruiners of the country try to equate their actions with the a perverse idea of “loyalty”.
I think Australia would be a much better place if you and bemused and most of the ALP and all the LNP moved to Alabama and left those who want a grown up and independent Australia here. 🙂
Is that a deal?
swamprat is into self-determination. I get that. It is a very old-fashioned idea….maybe from around 1948. It was important in de-colonisation and efforts to break down racism and the barriers of Empire. It is a joyous idea. It also begs the question…in an era when neo-Imperialist romanticism is stirring; at a time when nationalist sentiments are also xenophobic and reactionary….what does self-determination mean these days? I’v been thinking about this today, while I was working….
briefly
“maybe from around 1948”
—-
God those American colonists in 1796 were so anachronistic.!!!!
They should have consulted briefly first.
Swamp…you have entirely the wrong idea about C@t. She is a fighter for working people’s interests, values and dignity. A tireless fighter and a brave one too.
Briefly
if you could be rational a moment. In terms of each of those items I mentioned, they were features of Obama and while Trump has not improved them there is not much evidence he has worsened them> he has done a bit of threatening but not much action.
It was Obama who put 1,00 troops into Niger, It was Obama who bombed Libya. It was Obama who undermined Syria, It was Obama who oversaw the NSA expansion and surveillance. The USA has been an imperialist power ALWAYS just like other great powers. It isjust that there is some sort of perverted mythology that the USA is not imperialist.
However
Louisiana,
Cuba
Mexico
California
All the Indian lands
Hawaii
Alaska
Phillipines
Marshall Islands
Porto Rico
Guam
All have been acquired by imperialist actions (sometimes handed back eg Phillipines.
Then there are the imperialist bases in many countries which probably exceed in number and strength those that Britain had at the height of its empire.
Now Russia was an imperialist power under the Tsars, when its stretch included many countreis such as the Ukraine that are now independent.
In the years following WWII Russia seized areas around its borders which is semi imperialist, although I might just call it land grab/strategic positioning, rather than imperialist in the older meaning of the word. Its last imperialist adventure was Afghanistan, but the USA took over that role.
As far as I know Russia has very few overseas military bases, which is sort of what is meant by the term imperialist. I guess Syria counts, but that is pretty much it although perhaps they have something in Africa or South America.
Nonetheless, Briefly….it remains the case that you have been hacked. The memes you run with…the Trump Russia junk, the US is economically strong myth, the nuclear trivia….these are the junk of USA propaganda. You have been played.
briefly
I have no idea who C@tmomma is.
i only respond to his/her comments against when he/her opposes my pro-Irish, pro-Scottish coments.
swamprat
briefly
“maybe from around 1948”
—-
God those American colonists in 1796 were so anachronistic.!!!!
They should have consulted briefly first.
I have only been blogging for a few weeks….not long enough to start a war of Independence.
dtt….you have got to stop admiring yourself in the mirror.
briefly
haha
i was not saying you started the American Mutiny. I was gently poiting out that self-determination started well before 1948.
Did not Boedicca fight for self determination in Briton against the Roman conquerers, who of course you would support, in 60 AD???