It was only a matter of time before the citizenship requirements of section 44 of the constitution, which has already felled two victims in recent months and left two more hoping for a court victory to clear them, would strike again. Who would it be? MPs with parents born overseas were vetted; would it be Liberal Julia Banks, the subject of a kerfuffle over her possible Greek citizenship? As it turned out, the next victim had never been mentioned as a contender. Step forward Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who is off to the High Court after this morning announcing he might be a New Zealander.

It’s only a fortnight since Joyce assured us he was not English, and had never been to England (wrongly, as it turned out). But the idea that Joyce, who’s a walking cliche of Country Party tradition, could be anything other than dinky-di, true-blue, fair dinkum country Aussie was the reason we found it amusing. Turns out, however, that some sleuthing by Fairfax journalists about Joyce’s New Zealand-born father prompted the discovery that he might, indeed, be a Kiwi. If Joyce is ruled ineligible a byelection would be required for the seat of New England — at which, of course, Joyce could stand once he has renounced any citizenship. 

So Joyce is off to the High Court along with Matt Canavan and Malcolm Roberts. The list is getting so long, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has written to Bill Shorten asking if he has any contenders in his ranks that could be added to the list so they can be done as a job-lot. But Joyce has declined to follow the lead of Canavan, who resigned from Cabinet and will not vote in the Senate (though he’ll be paired, so it won’t have any impact on legislative outcomes). Joyce will remain deputy PM and in cabinet, although how his case is different from that of Canavan, who similarly claims he knew nothing about, and did nothing to get, Italian citizenship, isn’t clear. Canavan himself took a different approach from that of Greens Senators Ludlam and Waters, who both immediately resigned after discovering they were dual citizens.

The smart-alec remarks from government figures about Ludlam and Waters now look very, very dumb — as wise heads within Liberal ranks, who refrained from offering any commentary at the time — would surely have feared. After all, Australia is a successful multicultural society where more than half the population are either born overseas or have a parent born overseas. Who’d have thought a constitutional restriction around dual citizenship was going to have an impact — or that it would only be confined to one side of politics?

We’re not there yet, but a couple more MPs and this will start to look like a constitutional crisis — one not of the making of anyone alive (except, perhaps, for the barrister who thought they were clever catching Scott Ludlam out) but nonetheless engendering major political uncertainty. Barnaby Joyce is deputy PM, but doesn’t hold a major portfolio and is not regarded by markets as economically significant, except as an advocate for protectionism. But how many MPs do we have to lose before the stability of the political system starts looking like it might be at risk?

Over to you, High Court.