There will be another four citizenship by-elections in South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and Tasmania in coming months in the wake of the High Court’s decision this morning to find ACT Labor Senator Katy Gallagher ineligible to have stood in the 2016 election.
Gallagher had sought to renounce her British citizenship ahead of the 2016 election but the process had not been completed by the time she nominated for the election. She had argued to the High Court that she had taken all reasonable efforts to renounce her citizenship and that the failure of the British Home Office to process her renunciation prior to nomination did not prevent her being from constitutionally eligible even under the High Court’s much stricter reading of section 44 of the constitution enunciated last year.
The High Court disagreed, in effect deciding that Gallagher could have taken steps to renounce her UK citizenship earlier. “The issue for Senator Gallagher was only ever to be the timing of the registration,” the Court found. “It was the responsibility of Senator Gallagher to ensure that renunciation of her British citizenship took effect under the law of the United Kingdom before her nomination for the election which occurred on 2 July 2016 if she was to escape the disqualifying effect of s 44(i) …”
Following the ruling, shortly before 1pm, Labor’s Justine Keay, Josh Wilson and Susan Lamb all resigned from the House of Representatives. Keay and Wilson were both in a similar situation to Gallagher in not having had final confirmation of their renunciation provided prior to nomination. Lamb remains a UK citizen following her inability to provide appropriate documents as part of her renunciation. Centre Alliance’s Rebekha Sharkie, who was also in a similar position to Gallagher, has also resigned from her seat of Mayo in South Australia. It is understood all will recontest their seats. A fifth by-election, caused by the resignation of Labor’s Tim Hammond from the seat of Perth, is also due in coming weeks.
The Gallagher decision and the byelections make an utter mockery of Labor’s oft-repeated claim that its internal processes for ensuring its candidates were constitutionally ineligible were watertight and that there was no cloud over any of his MPs. Melbourne MP David Feeney already resigned earlier this year from his seat of Batman.
As with Batman, the byelections will represent a challenge for Bill Shorten and Labor. Justine Keay’s seat of Braddon is a marginal, which she won by 2.2%. Lamb narrowly defeated Wyatt Roy in the ultra-marginal Longman with the help of preference flows from both One Nation and the Katter’s Australian Party, and holds it by just 0.79%. Wilson’s seat of Fremantle is safe from the Liberals but the Greens, who polled nearly 18% in 2016, may pose a stronger challenge, particularly if a high-profile Greens candidate, perhaps one with some history on the citizenship issue, stands. Losing any of those seats would start alarm bells ringing within Labor about its inability to convert a long and substantial polling lead into results on the ground.
Sharkie is given little chance of hanging onto Mayo given the performance of Nick Xenophon’s SA-BEST party at the recent South Australian state election and is expected to return to the Liberal fold.
“The Gallagher decision and the byelections make an utter mockery of Labor’s oft-repeated claim that its internal processes for ensuring its candidates were constitutionally ineligible were watertight”
That’s a load of old tommy-rot, Bernard. Unlike with the Coalition, who never even bothered to check their eligibility, one way or another, these MP’s all seemed to have engaged in due diligence, even if the High Court decided it was insufficient. The question is how many more Liberal & National MP’s are in identical circumstances to Labor, but which they’re using their numbers to prevent referral?
What does this mean the the election as a whole? If anything??
“make(s) an utter mockery of Labor’s oft-repeated claim that its internal processes for ensuring its candidates were constitutionally ineligible were watertight”
I guess even legal commentators have been ‘blind-sided’ by the High Court decisions. The man in the street’s definition of ‘reasonable efforts’ keeps taking knocks from ‘authoritarian’/’black and white’ decision makers such as CentreLink, other Public Service Departments (State and Federal), and higher level Law Courts where the decisions have less to do with common sense than the interpretation of soulless edits and rules.
Parts of my family goes back five generations in Australia, but two grandfathers, who arrived over 100 years ago, would make me a dual citizen in spite of my having both parents born in Australia and my being born here nearly 70 years ago.
This out of date, non-inclusive citizenship set of rules issue can only be resolved, it seems, by a Referendum. What a nonsense.
I would not blame any organisation thinking they had the situation ‘covered’ for their membership before the application of the ‘Law’ by the High Court in these recent times.
‘edicts’ not edits and rules.
‘go’ not goes back.
Also, the quote is directly from the article.
I suspect it was meant to say ‘were (not) constitutionally ineligible’ or ‘were constitutionally eligible’.
Once since federation, a government has won a seat from the opposition in a federal by-election, and that was in 1920 when the Labor MP for Kalgoorlie had been expelled from parliament for making seditious comments against the King.
Quite frankly, if an opposition can’t hold some marginal seats in by-elections, what possible chance would it have of winning the ensuing general election? Even in Longman, where the victory was due to ONP preferences, Labor needs to win seats in Queensland (and NSW) to win government. If it can’t attract the extra support probably needed to hold Longman, what chance in the tougher seats?
Finally, on the limited evidence available (New England and Bennelong), voters are not punishing disqualified MPs for “sloppy” paperwork.
I feel differently . I’ll be damned if I feel aggrieved for a politician who knowingly or otherwise, did not cross their “i”s and dot their “t’s – (deliberate mistake). You know why this happened? it’s not because these poor unfortunate luvvies were caught unawares. Nooo. They knew damn well there were question marks surrounding their nomination and their standing as parliamentarians in federal Parliament but they chose to game the system and lost. Shorten can only come out of this a much diminished person and the affected persons were simply arrogant and would have responded, (I can just see it now), when queried as to their credentials for nomination with a long standing, “How dare you”. That is what this category belongs to. AS arrogant ALP hacks they thought nothing but their own egos and the righteousness of their cause that they forgot to do the basics. they may even qualify for a pension in their “other” country. Bugger them.
Mine was an empirical point, not making a judgement. All I’m saying is that apparently, in those two seats, the voters didn’t punish the offending MPs. We will soon discover whether this “tolerance” is shared in other seats.
Fine if you feel like that, just apply the same principles to the c
Don’t understand how a party relying on legal advice and past decisions of the High Court are “made a mockery” because the present High Court decided to change the test and effectively abolish the idea of “reasonable steps”.
Seriously, does everything have to be extreme? Can’t people be wrong without being “made a mockery” or be right without it being a “genius move”?
This is one of the major contributors to shit journalism, this kind of extreme reaction to everything.
Undoubtedly the media are going to make a mockery of the ALP because that’s just what you guys do- mock without nuance or trying to help educate the public. Mostly proving your own ignorance. The law is a difficult place, there’s often conflicting opinions between QCs even when the High Court isn’t shifting the goalposts.
Bloody well said.
Is it just me or was the article edited afterwards to change it to UTTER mockery?
Real mature, Keane.