There will be no One Nation candidates in the South Australian March 2018 election because the party failed to register within the six months prior to an election, as required.

Not very smart, and perhaps an indicator of a lack of discipline that is needed for a party to be taken seriously.

All the disaffected votes will be there for Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives to scoop up.

//All the disaffected votes will be there for Cory Bernardi's Australian Conservatives to scoop up.//

A landslide for Cory's Tories, you reckon? Don't hold your breath.

Who said anything about a landslide? AC is a repository for disaffected people to put their votes. I really don't think that voters are suddenly going to start thinking and shy away from their usual Lib/Lab rut. South Australians have kept the Socialists in for 16 years, despite the fact that they have dragged the state down just about as far as it can go.

Pauline Pantsdown...

More trouble for One Nation today. The High Court declared their Queensland Senator Malcolm Roberts was a UK citizen the day he was elected. It would seem only a formality for his election to be declared unlawful by the High Court next month.

There's been an electoral boundary redistribution in South Australia since their last election so it might be more difficult for Jay Weatherill to hold sway this time.

Perhaps I'm strange, but I would rather a party that was good at having the right ideas, & an ear for what the electors want, than one that is good at organisation & dotting eyes & crossing tees.

It will be a pity if we lose Malcolm Roberts from the senate. He is one of the few politicians who knows & can prove that the Global warming fraud is just a plan of the elites to wind back the living standard of the bulk of the population.

Only a change to a leader who shouts very loudly that climate change is CRAP could get me to vote again for either of them.

Either of the majors that is.

If Roberts goes, the rest of the dual citizens must go too - including Joyce. The High Court has deemed that all cases are the same, and that they will be considering them together. It's unclear why the High Court is involved at all: the Act is as clear as the nose on your face.

Dear ttbn,

The reason the cases are being put before the High Court is because the intended purpose of the provision still counts for something. If the law were always interpreted literally, then all sorts of legal absurdities would eventuate:

http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/cases/Adler-v-George.php

Then there’s also the fact that the politicians want to save their skin.

"Perhaps I'm strange" I'll agree with that Hassy.

AJ, the problem lies in whether the High Court is to interpret intended purpose as it would apply to those men who wrote the Constitution around 1900 or do. they apply a more liberal. and different, 21st century interpretation. Try to read the mind set of men long dead is a real problem. The easy way out of course is a literal interpretation,
"Were you a foreign citizen?"..."Yes!"..."Out!" end of story, not something acceptable to me.

I favour a Constitutional Commission with the powers to rule on these matters, and with the same authority as a Royal Commission. Including the power to alter as necessary. As a safe guard appointment of commissioners should be for a set term and limited in number. Requiring 3/4 support of parliament for appointment, rulings should also require 3/4 support of commission members before change can take place.

I can see no reason why any court should be interfering in this matter. Section 44 is written in plain English; we should not have activist judges 'interpreting' something that does not need interpreting. All of the dual citizens should be booted out of parliament and by-elections held. The whole thing has cheapened Australian citizenship, and made us look like hicks. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the only people to have done the right thing (although, like the others, they should have known that they were not eligible in the first place) are the two Greens. If the High Court, in its arrogance, decides that any of the other bozos can continue in parliament, we might as well give up all pretence of democracy and let Rafferty make the rules.

The ABC reports that the High Court has found that Malcolm Roberts was a UK citizen at the time of his election. So, it should be goodbye Malcolm, even though he would have been valuable in the fight against AGW hysteria. If the Constitution does not prevail, we have no hope.

Paul1405,

There is no need to read the minds of the past. Readings and debates are documented in Hansard so that lawyers and judges can see what the purpose was behind a piece of legislation. The debates surrounding each section of the Constitution, throughout the 1890s, were recorded.

Even if the purpose behind a provision is encapsulated accurately in a literal interpretation of it, judges may still determine that a provision is too absurd to be read literally. It has already been determined, in Sykes v Cleary, that a purely literal interpretation of s 44(i) of the Constitution would be absurd, as it would technically mean that a foreign government could mess with our parliament simply by changing their citizenship laws.

In Sykes v Cleary, it was found that dual citizenship may be alright so long as reasonable steps had been taken to renounce one’s foreign citizenship. Although this was not the case for Cleary. Clearly this wasn’t the case with Malcolm Roberts, either.

--

Dear ttbn,

I have gone through it three times now. If you still do not understand, then there is nothing more I can say. I am sorry it did not work out.

Hi AJ, "lawyers and judges can see what the purpose was behind a piece of legislation". Not withstanding that, what might appear to many as straight forward and reasonable, to others it may not be so clear cut. Even to judges and lawyers.

Hi ttbn, "I can see no reason why any court should be interfering in this matter" So who should be interfering, if its not the court. Can not leave it up to Malcolm, and if we did which Malcolm would that be? Would the Malcolm at the centre of the storm, do a Greens and simply walk, or would the other Malcolm simply give him the sack for political reasons.

Paul,

Now that Roberts has been found to be in parliament illegally, it is up go his party to replace him. But, yes, I concede that the actual citizenship of the person needs to be confirmed apolitically first.