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Archaic obstacles: Australia, parliament and dual citizenship : Comments
By Binoy Kampmark, published 21/7/2017It is a provision that nabs the unsuspecting member of Parliament who discovers, by self-pursuit or otherwise, that he or she is, in fact, seized of the loyalty of another state.
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It is one hell
of a penalty to pay for not checking on your relationship
with a nation you left at 3 years of age and never knew
to now have to relinquish your Senate seat because of
it.
Obviously there is the argument that the Constitution is
merely trying to ensure that the only allegiance our
Parliamentarians have is to Australia but again New Zealand
and Canada are not - Libya, Syria, Somalia, Russia or China.
As someone pointed out earlier on another discussion - if
you were born in either New Zealand or Canada (both British
Colonies at the time) and left when you were either a baby
or three years of age - there should be room for you in our
Parliament especially seeing as you were a naturalised Aussie
and had sworn allegiance to Australia and her people - and were
genuinely oblivious to any problems.
When Australian Senators have lived here for half a century
without causing a fuss - and done a good job, it makes no
sense to boot them out.
Instead of booting these people out, lets hold a Referendum
and choose anothers to boot out (as one journalist suggested.
We all know who we'd pick!).