Not surprised by the deadly silence on the issue, I have continued looking and have come to the conclusion that the Constitution does not recognise dual citizenship; dual citizenship is not even mentioned in the Constitution, in so many words, simply because the people writing it would not have dreamed of anything so daft being permitted by politicians whose stupidity and corruption they could never have imagined.

Citizenship is governed by the Australian Citizenship Act, which was amended by a Bill in 2002, which landed us with the current stupid situation which has some Australians are trotting around proclaiming that they are Italian, Greek, Hottentot, and so on.

The up to date Act, bodgied up by the Howard Government, is the Australian Citizenship Act 2007. We should be very, very pleased that the bastards cannot alter the Constitution without our permission.

ttbn,

"Does the Constitution actually mention dual citizenship anywhere apart from Section 44?"

The fact that Sec, 44 mentions it means that it exists and that such existence is recognized and is legal, the Constitution does not ban dual citizenship but establishes it as a bar to membership of Parliament.

Just for fun, how many MPs get a Government paid pension?

"44. Any person who -
(i.) ....
(ii.) ....
(iii.) .... or
(iv.) Holds any office of profit under the Crown, or any pension payable during the pleasure of the Crown out of any of the revenues of the Commonwealth: or
(v.) ....

shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives."

I was thinking of ex-members of the Services, but their pensions may not be ".... during the pleasure of the Crown".

If you read the email notifications mindly sent by Graham, you would have seen a post from Sinclair Davidson on Catallaxy Files showing just how ignorant is senior minister, Mattias Corman about having an audit of politicians citizenship status, and of the powers and purpose of the High Court.

It shows that one-time U.S vice-president, Spiro Agnew, isn't the only politician "unable to walk and chew gum at the ame time".

Is this the end of the Turnballs govt? With a number of MP's looking dodgy, one by-election loss will see the end of Turnballs. A general election and a Labor govt with Dill Shortass as the new PM. Xmas is not that far off!

How can a country intrude on, and dictate, the status of citizens of another country ? Just suppose, say, that Tajikstan declared that all people of the world were hereby Tajikis, unto the Nth generation, and declared that that universal Tajiki citizenship status was irrevocable ? What's to stop it ?

Surely, if someone is born here and has never, in any word or deed, done anything to favour another country, then they are, if you like, de facto citizens only of Australia ? Is that amazingly naive or what ? How can another country intrude on the sovereign powers of Australia, sort of reach over its shoulder, and declare an Australian citizen to be the citizen of another country ? Doesn't this breach the sovereign powers of the Australian government ? God, I'm so ashamed to be so naive.

Ttbn,

I always thought that quote was by L. B. Johnson, about Gerald Ford, and that it as a bit more indelicate, more to the effect that "That bastard is so dumb, he can't fart and chew gum at the same time." He was probably right.

Cheers,

Joe