The Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, has announced that he may have dual citizenship with New Zealand and therefore be in breach of Section 44(i) of the Constitution.
Joyce has agreed that the government will refer his case to the High Court. He will not resign from his NSW seat of New England and will remain in the Cabinet as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources.
The announcement was made in a brief statement by Joyce to the House of Representatives this morning. The Nationals leader entered the Senate in 2005 and transferred to the House of Representatives in 2013.
Joyce is the fifth MP to be ensnared by Section 44 in recent weeks. Greens senators Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters have both resigned from the Senate, whilst Senators Matt Canavan (LNP) and Malcolm Roberts (One Nation) have been referred to the High Court. The Nationals member for Lyne, David Gillespie, faces a challenge on the office of profit provision of Section 44.
The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has written to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, asking him to nominate Labor members who should also be referred to the High Court.
Listen to Joyce (2m)
Watch Joyce (2m)
Letter from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.
Hansard transcript of statement to the House of Representatives by Barnaby Joyce.
Scott Ludlam, an Australian Greens senator from Western Australia, resigned today, after announcing he had dual citizenship with New Zealand and was therefore in breach of Section 44(i) of the Constitution.
Section 44(i) of the Constitution says that a person is “incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator” if they are “under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject of a citizen or entitled to the rights and privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power”.
In a statement, Ludlam said he was born in New Zealand. His family left when he was three years old and settled in Australia when he was nine. “I was naturalised when I was in my mid-teens and assumed that was the end of the New Zealand citizenship.”
Media reports today say that the citizenship question has been previously raised with Ludlam.
Ludlam, 47, was first elected to the Senate in 2007. He took up his seat on July 1, 2008. He was re-elected in 2013 and in the 2014 re-run election. He was re-elected to a six-year term in the 2016 double dissolution election. The Greens polled 10.53% in WA.
Ludlam has been Joint Deputy Leader of the Greens, with Larissa Waters, since May 2015.
It now appears that the Senate will refer the matter to the High Court. Twice this year, the court, sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, has ordered countbacks following rulings that Rodney Culleton and Bob Day were not entitled to nominate at the election. Assuming this takes place again, the seat will go to the number three candidate on the Greens WA Senate ticket, 22-year-old disability advocate Jordon Steele-John.
Media reports today quote Steele-John as not committing himself to taking the seat. Were he to resign, a casual vacancy would be created and the Greens would nominate a replacement. It would be possible for Ludlam to be appointed in these circumstances, provided he rectifies the citizenship issue. However, Ludlam’s statement and press conference suggested he has chosen to move on to other things.
The practical political implication of today’s resignation by Ludlam is that the Greens will be without one of their number for some months in the Senate. This will not make a significant difference but until the vacancy is filled the Turnbull government will only need eight of the eleven crossbench votes to secure passage of legislation opposed by the ALP and Greens. It currently needs nine extra votes. A pairing arrangement to cover the absence could also be put in place.
Ludlam is the third senator to fall victim to Section 44 since the 2016 election, an unprecedented situation.
Watch Ludlam’s media conference in Perth (15m)
Listen to the media conference (15m)
Statement from Senator Scott Ludlam. Click to enlarge
The High Court has ruled that Rodney Culleton was ineligible to be nominated for last year’s Senate election.
Culleton’s position as a senator is now vacant and the High Court has ruled that a recount of votes should take place. This is most likely to result in the election of Peter Georgiou, Culleton’s brother-in-law and the number two candidate on the Western Australian One Nation ticket last year.
The decision by Justices Kiefel, Bell, Gageler, Keane and Nettle was unanimous. Justice Nettle offered reasons which varied in some respects with his colleagues (see decision below).
Sitting as the Court of Disputed Returns, the court held that at the time of the election Culleton was convicted and subject to be sentenced for an offence punishable by imprisonment for one year or longer. Under Section 44(ii) of the Constitution, this renders Culleton ineligible to be chosen as a senator.
Nominations for the 2016 Federal Election closed today.
The table on this page shows the parties and groups contesting the Senate in the 6 states and 2 territories.
A cell is shaded yellow if a particular party/group is contesting that state/territory.
The major parties are listed first. Other groups are listed in alphabetical order but I have made some rearrangements to take account of groups combining forces in various states/territories. Most groups have nominated two or three candidates.
Nominations for the federal election closed today.
The table below shows the number of nominations in House of Representatives seats, broken down by state.
A total of 994 candidates have nominated for the 150 seats in the House. This is 194 fewer than the record 1,188 candidates at the 2013 House election.
The average number of candidates per seat is 6.6.
The smallest number of nominations is 3 in the Victorian electorate of Gorton, held by the ALP’s Brendan O’Connor.
Seven seats have the largest number of nominations, 11 each. They are: Grayndler and Lindsay (NSW); Batman, Dunkley and Murray (Vic); Longman (Qld); and Solomon (NT).
A further eight seats have 10 nominations each. They are: New England, Sydney and Warringah (NSW); and Corangamite, Gippsland, Indi, La Trobe and Wills (Vic).
