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1Australia’s Parliament is full of Foreigners: Possibly the most absurd constitutional crisis ever.
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3Fundamentally, the whole issue resolves around the question of whether certain members of parliament are eligible to actually serve in parliament.
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5This all started in June this year, when John Cameron, a barrister from Perth, applied to the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs to search the register of New Zealand citizens, intending to confirm whether co-deputy leader of the Greens Party, Scott Ludlam and founder of the Justice Party, Derryn Hinch, both incumbent Australian Senators who were born in New Zealand, had renounced their New Zealand citizenships as required under section 44(i) of the Constitution. Cameron discovered that Ludlam, unlike Hinch, had not renounced his New Zealand citizenship, and notified the Clerk of the Australian Senate and Ludlam. As far as anyone can tell, he did this out of sheer morbid legal curiosity; though there is some evidence to suggest he was hoping to pull a Gotcha! on Hinch.
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7Section 44 of the Australian Constitution is essentially a list of restrictions detailing who is and is not eligible to serve as an elected member of Parliament or Senator. The specific section relevant here is as follows:
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944. Any person who -
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11(i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power
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13shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
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15Tl;dr, this prohibits Dual Citizens from serving as Politicians in Australia. This is apparently unusual in the Anglosphere, as few, if any other Anglo nations prohibit dual citizens in parliament.
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17Anyway, back to the story.
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19Ludlam, after being informed of this, resigned from his position. Ludlam had settled in Australia with his family aged eight, and had previously assumed he lost his New Zealand citizenship when he naturalised as an Australian citizen in his mid-teens. Kiwi citizenship however, is a *hilariously* virulent thing, and is not divested so easily, as we shall see.
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21A couple of days later, Ludlam's Co-Deputy leader of the Greens, Larissa Waters, investigates her own citizenship status and discovers she still holds Canadian citizenship. She promptly resigns. (And there was much rejoicing, as for a little while there’s two less Greens giving everyone else in the senate shit.) Waters was born in Canada to Australian parents who were briefly living there, but the family returned to Australia while Waters was still a baby. She had previously believed that she would have needed to take active steps before age 21 in order to become a Canadian citizen, but discovered that she had in fact held Canadian citizenship by birth.
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23Now, here's where it starts to get really silly.
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25A week or so later, Liberal National Party Senator Matt Cavanan resigned as Minister for Resources and Northern Australia (But *not* from his seat in parliament) over doubts as to his eligibility to be a member of the parliament, after discovering that he may be considered by the Italian authorities to be a citizen of Italy. Canavan's mother had apparently registered him as an Italian resident abroad with the Italian consulate in Brisbane in 2006, as she herself had Italian Citizenship. Canavan stated he was unaware of this until his mother decided to inform him following news of the resignation of the two aforementioned Greens senators holding dual citizenship.
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27The Senate then, at the start of August, refers the above 4 Senators to the High Court of Australia to clarify their eligibility. At the same time, fucking Buzzfeed sticks their dick into the pot, as they do, by revealing that yet another senator, Malcom Roberts of the One Nation Party (Also known as the 'Racist, Xenophobic old Grandma Party’) was in a fit of utter irony, a British Citizen (Apparently born in India to an Australian mother and a British father). He strenuously and blusteringly denied this accusation.
28The senate promptly ignored his protestations and referred him to the High Court too.
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30A few days later, Barnaby Joyce - *The Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the National Party* - was informed by the new Zealand Government that he may in fact be a New Zealand citizen. Trans-Tasman shitposting commences immediately, with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop accusing New Zealand's Labour Party of being "involved in allegations designed to undermine the government of Australia" and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull accused the Australian Labor Party of conspiring "with a foreign power", as a NZ Labour MP had brought the matter to the attention of the NZ Government. *Possibly* at the request of the AU Labor Party, we’re not sure.
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32This is where the Insidiousness of NZ Citizenship becomes apparent to the public at large - not only is it not actively divested when naturalizing to another country, it is automatically inherited via descent without any application or action required; i.e if one or both of your parents were a Kiwi when you were born, you are too automatically. It has been speculated that this was the Kiwi's insidious plot to take over the world in a few centuries' time.
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34At this point, the issue had become a partisan tennis ball (a flaming one soaked in napalm), and the Government promptly accuses multiple Labor Party MPs and Senators of being potentially Dual Citizens. As you do.
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36A few days later, The Deputy leader of the National Party, Senator Fiona Nash, reveals that she has British citizenship by descent through her Scottish father. This brings the total count of foreigners running the country up to 6.
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38A few days after that, as if this shit wasn't already weird as hell, the only sane man in Parliament, Senator Nick Xenophon, announced that British authorities had confirmed that he is a British Overseas citizen, a lesser form of British nationality, that's so obsolete and irrelevant that the British Home Office stated that it even still existing was utterly ridiculous. Apparently, his father was born in Cyprus when it was a British colony and possessed a British passport, with Senator Xenophon inheriting the citizenship from his father. While Xenophon had made efforts to renounce any potential Greek or Cypriot citizenship he may have had, he was understandably not aware that he may possess a form of pseudo-British nationality that even the British had forgotten about until a journalist contacted him a few days prior, prompting him to seek clarification from British authorities.
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40By that point we were well into September, and the shiptosting had intensified to the point where we flat out couldn’t contain it - including Barnaby Joyce being nominated for New Zealander of the year by most of New Zealand, and him breaking down in tears on camera at the very idea of being a Kiwi. Malcom Roberts' protestations of True-Blue Australianism continue to become increasingly feverish and ridiculous; including stating that "He had always to his knowledge been an Australian Citizen, but despite not knowing of other potential citizenships he had apparently previously taken steps to renounce them." Yeah, we were just as confused as he sounded.
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42Now, by late October, the High Court finally delivered its ruling - Joyce, Nash, Roberts, Ludlam and Waters were all Ineligible to sit in Parliament and would have to resign and stand for re-election. Xenophon and Canavan are in the clear, the former because apparently being a second-class colonial does not count as full foreign citizenship, and the latter because the Italians were just as confused as we were and couldn't find any record that Canavan had ever actually signed the paperwork to become an Italian citizen – since he wasn't a minor at the time, his mom couldn't legally do it for him. Yes, that is actually what the High Court had to rule.
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44The High court Ruling here was notable for being far, far stricter than anyone had predicted. Most had assumed that total ignorance or "reasonable measures" to divest citizenship would be acceptable excuses, but the High Court flat-out ruled that nope, being a Dual Citizen at all was disqualifying, whether you knew about it or had reasonably tried to divest it or not. Apparently the only exceptions in that respect are citizenships literally impossible to divest, like Argentine or Iranian, or ones that aren't full citizenships like British Overseas Citizenship.
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46(When hearing Robert's case, we got even more hilarious soundbites from Roberts, who appeared to have gone off the deep end -  Roberts repeatedly stated that he was "choosing to believe that he was never British",  and that his pretty bloody weak attempts to renounce any potential British Citizenship amounted to sending two emails containing the phrase "I hereby renounce any potential British Citizenship I may hold" to a British Government email address - and address that upon inspection never actually existed.)
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48Naturally, this far-stricter-than-expected ruling, far from settling the issue, proceeded to open the gates to an even greater shitstorm. Somehow.
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50Immediately after the high Court Ruling, the entire Parliament went into a panic, checking their statuses. 4 Days after the ruling was handed down, Liberal Senator and President of the Senate Stephen Parry revealed that he was enquiring whether he holds British citizenship through his father, who was born in the United Kingdom. On 1 November, Parry announced that he had received confirmation that he held British citizenship, and that he would resign the next day, which he did.
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52Early in November, the media reported that Liberal MP John Alexander may have British citizenship through his father, who was born in the United Kingdom. Alexander stated that he believed his father's British citizenship had been renounced before he was born, but that he would enquire about his citizenship status with British authorities. British authorities noted they could find no evidence his father had ever renounced his citizenship, and Alexander promptly resigned.
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54At about the same time, Senator Jacqui Lambie, quite possibly the single most stereotypically bogan individual to ever enter the Houses of Parliament, revealed that her father was born in Scotland, causing questions to be raised about her citizenship status. Turned out, she was in fact a Scot, and promptly resigned in tears.
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56On the 10th of November, a recount was done to appoint replacements for the senators originally ruled ineligible; however this was delayed as the replacement for Fiona Nash was noted to be potentially ineligible under section 44(iv) of the Constitution as a holder of an office of profit under the Crown; Hughes had been appointed to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in the period following her apparent election defeat. She was ruled ineligible, so now we need to find a replacement for the replacement.
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58(As an amusing Aside, Malcom Robert's replacement, Fraser Anning of One Nation, creates much hilarity in the populace by Resigning from One Nation and sitting as an Independent no less than 1 hour after he was sworn in as a Senator.)
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60At this point, the Prime Minister and the Opposition leader were absolutely sick of this shit, so they grudgingly agreed to an audit of all MP's citizenships, All members of the federal parliament will be required to disclose by 1 December their date and place of birth, citizenship at birth, and details of their parents and grandparents; if they were born overseas, details of their naturalisation as Australian citizens; and an account of how they have satisfied themselves that they are not dual citizens and what they have done to renounce any foreign ties of this kind.
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62December 1 is, naturally, already marked in everyone's calendars as a day that will live in Hilarity.
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64The media has, of course, taken great pleasure in investigating and publicising which other MPs and Senators may hold dual citizenship - at this point, 13 are under serious investigation. This includes, in the greatest fit of Irony known to man, Queen Xenophobic old Grandma herself, Pauline Hanson, whom may possibly be a British Citizen.
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66In addition to those 13, there's another 14 or so who have made statements to the effect that they have renounced foreign citizenship but have yet to formally produce documentation.
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68*On top of that*, there's another 4 who are under investigation under the other parts of Section 44 - Offices of profit and pecuniary interests; basically they may be ineligible due to money matters.
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71So, basically, a significant proportion of our parliament are or may be ineligible foreigners, two of the most Anti-foreigner parties in Parliament have turned out to be composed primarily of foreigners, and most of the country is contemplating whether we should just sack them all and elect people who aren't quite so hilariously incompetent. And that Malcom Roberts should probably be appointed Court Jester or something.