Labor MP Susan Lamb has opened up about the "deeply personal" details of the breakdown of her relationship with her estranged mother, in a move that could head off Coalition critics demanding she quit Parliament over her British citizenship.
The Queensland-based MP for Longman has previously said that she and her mother, Hazel Cant, are estranged and that she had taken the “reasonable steps” required to give up her British citizenship.
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Lamb opens up over citizenship questions
The Queensland Labor MP told parliament she was unable to get a copy of her parent's marriage certificate from her estranged mother.
Ms Lamb is a British citizen through her father and she began the process of renouncing her UK citizenship about two weeks before nominations for the 2016 election closed; her application to renounce her British citizenship was rejected by the UK Home Office because she did not have a copy of her parent’s marriage certificate.
She was unable to obtain the certificate because under Queensland law if a parent is alive - as her mother is - they must give permission for the marriage certificate to be released.
Openly weeping, Ms Lamb spoke publicly for the first time about the break with her mother, revealing the harrowing detail that when she was six her mother had dropped her off at school one day and never returned.
Ms Lamb said she had never held a British passport or even been to visit her father's country of birth and insisted that she was still eligible to sit in the Parliament.
"One day when I was six years old my mum dropped me off at school and she never came back," Ms Lamb said, crying before a silent house.
"I remember lots of tears, lots of confusion, I remember my Dad trying to explain…"
She paid tribute to her father, an "amazing man" who had raised her as a single parent and then listed all of the significancnt moments in her life that her mother had missed.
He had died, she said, 20 years ago and for a decade before that had been unable to care for himself. Ms Lamb said she had no right to access the marriage certificate, under Queensland law, that had been sought because of the requirement for her mother's permission.
"She wasn't there to support me when I needed it ... I don't know what was going on in my Mum's life back then ... I don't know what is going on now."
"I don't speak about this trauma ... so when people ask me why I don't just call my mother, well this is why.
"I'd rather not share this with anyone ... let alone the Parliament of Australia."
"I have been forced to rip off that Band-aid."
The Turnbull government has been campaigning for Ms Lamb to quit Parliament, arguing her own legal advice says she is still British. As recently as Monday, Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne threatened to refer her to the High Court.
Ms Lamb's emotional detailing of her circumstances will likely give the government pause for thought before referring her now.