What the hell is going on with the Nationals?
Nationals deputy leader Fiona Nash, moments before the Senate rose for a fortnight, announced she could be a "British citizen by descent through her Scottish born father".
Come on.
Rumours had swirled around Parliament House on Thursday that another Coalition MP was about to announce they were in trouble. The assumption, based on pure statistical probability, was that it was a Liberal MP.
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Dual Nash-onal
A third Turnbull government minister has been caught up in the dual citizenship crisis that has rocked parliament, with Nationals senator Fiona Nash advising she is a British citizen by descent.
But it was Nash who told the Senate a "host of websites" had said she needed to apply for citizenship, rather than inheriting it.
But, lo, on further investigation, there she was announcing her possible UK citizenship, through her Scottish father, on the basis of advice from the UK, and the Solicitor-General. She will not resign from Parliament, or as deputy leader of the Nationals.
A party of knockabout, loveable country folk, the voice of the bush – and one of Australia's oldest political parties, founded in 1920 as the Australian Country Party – now feels the full glare of public scrutiny over its processes, vetting and standards.
And Australia's Parliament is now at a stand still, after a week of chaos that has rocked the government. Twenty-one people sit in the Nationals' party room in Canberra.
Four of them – just shy of one fifth of the party room – now face questions about the constitutional validity of their election to the Parliament. Section 44, part (i) of the Australian constitution is very clear: any person who 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"... "shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives".
In other words, just because you wear an Akubra or live in regional Australia, you still have to do the requisite checks.
It isn't optional for country folk. "She'll be right" doesn't cut it.
Instead, Barnaby Joyce and Fiona Nash, Nationals leader and deputy, and Matt Canavan – a Senate rising star – all face citizenship challenges, while king-making senator Barry O'Sullivan faces questions over family business dealings with the Commonwealth.
Is anyone checking the forms in the Nationals' HQ? Does anyone do the due diligence?
These are not unfair questions.
To lose one MP looks careless, but to face the loss of four ... you get the idea.
The government has insisted it is confident that, based on legal advice, its MPs will be OK. The High Court may have other ideas.
Coalition types have complained long and loud this week that Labor MPs who might be dual citizens haven't produced documents.
What they have produced are detailed timelines, emailed to any journalist who asks, explaining the steps they have taken to renounce any possible claim to dual citizenship. The Liberal Party has not done as well, stone-walling and issuing terse statements.
The Nationals have not even managed that.
What sort of Mickey Mouse operation are the Nationals running? The net result is this: Malcolm Turnbull has endured perhaps the worst week of his prime ministership. And the junior Coalition party, which holds him over a barrel on issues like same-sex marriage, is to blame.
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