At least now the Senate wont have to put up with Larissa making an exhibition out of feeding her baby in the workplace.

It sounds like you have a traitor in your ranks there, Paul1405!

My father has always barracked for Aussie sporting teams, and never is he happier to see Australia win than when they’re playing against England. Which is somewhat surprising, considering he was as old as 17 when he first arrived in Australia. When people pick up on what’s left of his cockney accent, his response is always, “Nah, I’m ‘Strayan!”, like a true blue, dinky-di, occa Aussie.

I’ve asked him before why he hates England so much, but the only reasons he cites are the miserable weather and the fact that Poms love to whinge all the time. Despite this, however, as soon as he’s around other Poms, he immediately starts dropping his Hs (or should I say, ‘is ‘aitches).

Now, wouldn’t it be nice if all Brits could assimilate like that?

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I don’t know about changing the Constitution. After all, it’s not that hard to check one’s citizenship status, most politicians seem to manage it, I think they've all learned a valuable lesson now, and it’s not like we need to retain citizenship to have the experience of having lived or grown up overseas or to retain adequate ties to other countries.

Not only are referenda expensive, but most of them get voted down anyway (whether or not they should be) simply because it is easier to reject a proposal than to put the effort into considering the risks and benefits of a change.

Furthermore, there are certain countries for which it could be argued that our MPs holding dual citizenship with is inappropriate (to put it politely); and an across-the-board ban on dual citizenship is far better, on a diplomatic level, than would be the singling-out of certain countries as undesirable places for our political candidates to be retaining citizenship with.

That being said, however, the renunciation of citizenship from one’s motherland is no guarantee against the possibility of an MP retaining treasonous ties with them.

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Thank you for your contribution, runner. As usual, you have given me a lot to think about.

On second thoughts, the inclusion of s 41(i) of the Constitution may have had nothing to do with concerns of treason and everything to do with a nationalist sentiment, as suggested by the article Foxy mentioned.

It would be interesting to read the discussions that took place regarding this provision in the 1890s Federal Conventions, but pinpointing them is proving to be difficult.

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/summary/summary.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=seq_num;query=Dataset%3Aconventions;resCount=Default

Or s 44(i), even.

Foxy, someone on here said that Germany does not allow dual citizenship.

leoj,
You said the two greens senators walked because 'they had to'.

I am not sure that is the case. Maybe they could have stayed there until someone challenged them in court (like Heather Hill). HH was the only one challenged so it was an action purely against One Nation.

After all there were quite a few members in both houses and on both sides at the time and I do not recall anyone other than HH resigning.

I have not confirmed it but I simply assumed that the dual citizenship members simply stayed there and recinded their foreign citizenship prior to the next election. Or perhaps they did not even do that as I do not recall it being raised again until now.

It is amusing though to now find the greens caught out by a rule that originally was only brought up to embarrass One Nation.