Queensland Greens senator Larissa Waters has followed Western Australian colleague and co-deputy leader Scott Ludlam out of the Senate this afternoon, revealing she was unaware that she had Canadian citizenship and thus had also fallen foul of section 44 of the constitution.
According to a statement by Waters, she was born in Canada while her Australian parents were briefly living there and left as an 11-month old, but this was sufficient to give her Canadian citizenship despite subsequent legal changes in Canada that would have prevented that. On Friday, Scott Ludlam revealed he had learnt he had retained New Zealand citizenship despite leaving the country as a child and being naturalised as an Australian.
Waters was elected in the 2010 election, which was the first time the Greens secured a Queensland senator. She retained her spot at the 2016 election.
The dual resignations have focused attention on the poor internal processes of the Greens state parties, which have failed to perform basic checks on candidates. Ludlam’s citizenship issue has been overlooked since 2006; like Ludlam, Waters will technically be required to repay her salary and entitlements since 2010, but she might appeal to avoid the obligation, as former senators Day and Culleton have in recent months.
Former senator and Australian Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett was second on the Greens ticket in Queensland in 2016 behind Waters and is likely to replace her. Bartlett was last in the Senate in 2008, having lost his spot in the 2007 election.
The second citizenship-based resignation in a matter of days has sharpened focus on a number of overseas-born senators and members, who may fall foul of the section 44 requirement that candidates for Parliament not owe any allegiance to a foreign power (even the Queen, in the case of Ludlam and Waters). Tony Abbott, Mathias Cormann and One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts have all stated they have renounced or lost non-Australian citizenships.
It is very easy not to know you are a foreign citizen if you have arrived in Australia as a baby or a child. If you have grown up here, you think you are Australian and questions of citizenship are quite simply not something you think about.
Many of those Dutton has taken great pleasure in deporting are people who arrived in Australia as small children and who were unaware they were not citizens, as that is what they consider themselves to be. And to all intents are purposes they are, having grown up as Australians.
I do think in this day and age with the international mobility of people, this rule about not being able to sit in Parliament if you are a dual national needs to be changed. After all our head of state is British.
I agree. It is a telling argument that we should also, logically, become a Republic or make our Governer General a temporary royal. It would be great if ASIO could do a total vet of all serving parliamentarians so we could sack a few.
How can anyone “forget” or “not know” that they are a citizen of another country? You are saying someone can live with their parents for 20 years or more and their actual place of birth is never mentioned? Surely when they first apply for a passport it comes up?
I’m a NZer, and like Scott Ludlum, came have as a child, but have never once “forgotten” that I’m not allowed to vote or join the public service. All the families I know are well aware of their nationalities, even those those who have lived here all their lives. You reckon someone who is eligible for and American or British passport will ever “forget” that! Well maybe, if its convenient for them to do so…
In Ludlam’s case that appears to be what happened, as the issue of his eligibility was raised three years ago by a change.org petition. So he didn’t hear about that? Oh really? Of course he did, but he and his party chose not to do anything. With Larirrsa Waters also now also caught out, it just signals that the Greens have either very a very poor understanding of the constitution and pathetic preselection processes. Probably both.
I happen to like both these politicians, especially Scott, but they have let us down. Badly. And what next. Will Lee Rhiannon also be found to be a citizen of the (defunct) Soviet Union? You can bet the Oz is sniffing around!
Easy for you, harder for others.
One of my daughters was born in the UK when I was working there for a year or so for the Aus government. We are and always have been Australian citizens, and so is she. It would be easy for her to forget the possibility of UK citizenship. Not so likely now, though, I guess.
Oh, puh-lease, Teddy. “Larirrsa” – you don’t even check your spelling / grammar so please do not lecture the rest of us on the virtues of rigorous examination of personal details – it’s a bit rich. Any one of us could be have been caught out by this citizenship fiasco. Larissa had previously effectively attempted to renounce her Canadian citizenship to no avail. Larissa explained; “At 21, I chose not to seek dual citizenship”. A reasonable person would think that this was the end of the matter. Furthermore, what did these two people have to gain by (inadvertently) retaining dual citizenships and what possible detriment does it hold for the Australian people – in both cases, citizenships assigned to infants?
I agree with everything Teddy said.
Who cares about Larissa anyway, no great loss.
I have never seen a more sanctimonious superior precious little bitch ‘if you don’t agree with me then your opinion doesn’t count’ in a long time (Bronny was close though)
They just don’t get it when their comeuppance arrives.
Hopefully she and the rest of the oxygen thieves who don’t seem to understand the eligibility requirements will have to pay back their ill gotten gains, might have to sell an investment property or too.
Pity that pay back clause isn’t ironclad in the constitution – or that the pigs at the same trough shouldn’t get to decide the appeal to not pay it back.
Perhaps the AEC should vet and approve all candidates?
Unnecessarily personal language, man. Craven, too. At least unmask yourself if you’re going to call someone a ‘bitch’ etc.
Senator base salary: $199,040
Electoral allowance: $32,000
Additional electoral allowance (eschew private plated car):$19,500
ie With starting dough of $250k a year – there are as we all know lucrative committee opportunities, other office holder allowances, travel, housing and incidental allowances that are very generous, and all sorts of lifestyle perks at taxpayer expense/subsidy, such as staff who can be defacto nannies, workplace in-situ child care in the infant-3 range, organised door-to-door travel, etc – I think it’s not unreasonable to expect that Senators and MP’s ensure that the basic qualifications of the position are met.
If I performed my Aged & Disability Care casual night shift job ($25/hr) without my annual Police Check, First Aid & Resusc certificates I’d be breaking the law and voiding my employer’s insurance. People get sacked in my industry, and I am sure pretty much everyone else’s, for ‘oversights’ like this. And unlike Waters and Ludlow, who I have little doubt will be back in the Senate (or similar) very soon, with life-devastating impact.
And most of us don’t have a political party to help with our work personal admin.
Parliamentary jobs may not be lucrative in comparison with private industry equivalents but compared to the vast majority of us, people in Rep/Senate positions are rolling in clover. Who doesn’t scrutinise every i and t in the contractual fine print of a $250k/annum gig? Just another marker of the disconnection from reality…undergraduate politics, it’s all a cliquey little game…
And for those of you defending Waters & Ludlum: you know very well you wouldn’t if it were Tony Abbott.
Oh, and by the way, one lady point.
You know ‘The Meeja’, that incredibly crucial-to-democracy civic watchdog? Remember ‘Serious Journalism’, the desperately threatened Fourth Estate whose noble vocation is to keep those bastards in PH honest? The dazzling brilliant wonderful ‘Meeja’, who bravely wield the privileges of free speech and journalistic access to our politicians on our behalf? Fearlessly ferreting out the truth, speaking it to power, informing us the facts in world of crazy Fake News?
Remember them? The Press Gallery, whose job – whose one job – might quite reasonably include checking out persistent claims/rumours about, say, whether a sitting parliamentarian is legally eligible or not? A nice solid ‘facty’ kind of yarn for a good old-fashioned reporter to sink their teeth into, eh, in this crazy old Teh Interwebz Iz All Teh Amateur Trollz LOL Age of ours.
Department of Where The Fuck Were You On Both These Stories These Last Ten Years Then?
Ludlum: member of the public broke the yarn. Waters: dobbed herself in.
Some Fourth Estate. Children. They’re all teeny-brat tyre-kickers, up on the big hill.
But hey guys: won’t you please please please please please please oh please yes please tell us again all about how the Abbot-Turnbull leadership thingy-wingy has been going in these last ten minutes or so…oh yes more please…
In all fairness – wether Commonwealth members count as foreign powers for parliament eligibility, isn’t common knowlege. They do count, but it’s not well known.
I can think of no other reason why
the guy who hates JewsMalcolm Roberts could forget that he’s Indian (as in from India, not the other kind).Or why Peter Dutton didn’t take the opportunity to pile on – even with Fran Kelly serving up the opportunity like a pudding this morning, he wouldn’t do it.
Is it because Germany isn’t a Commonwealth member (hello Eric)? Anyone happen to know
ifwhere Dutton was born?