Susan Lamb made an emotional plea not to be referred to the high court with lots of tears and no substance.

"Labor MP Susan Lamb has refused to refer herself to the High Court after delivering an emotional speech in the House of Representatives, strongly arguing she took every reasonable step to renounce her British citizenship before the 2016 election."

The basis of her plea was that she couldn't get a copy of her parents' marriage certificate because she was estranged from her mother. Her mother's comment was:

“I didn’t know about (Susan) going into politics until it was pretty much all over and done,’’ she said. “It was a big surprise. She didn’t contact me but I would have definitely helped her.’’

So Suzi told a porky in that she never took any reasonable action to obtain the certificate. That she will be disqualified is a forgone conclusion. It is now Shorten that looks like a liar having claimed that his MPs were thoroughly vetted and insisting that all coalition MPs were referred to the high court.

Unless Lamb is referred this will become a running sore for Labor.

As Sinclair Davis comments in the Catallaxy Files: "s44 does not say that you can ignore the law of the land if you are estranged from you mum".

The dual citizenship affair, apparently far from over, has served to tell us that we should be taking much more interest in the cheats and liars nominating for office; or, we should be warning political parties to take more time and care with their preselections.

Now that Susan's mother said what she said, it became a "reasonable step" for Susan to request her marriage certificate, something she must do within the next few days if she wants to retain her seat. Previously however, it was not a "reasonable step" to attempt to contact her hostile and abusive mother who so far refused contact in all previous family occasions.

In any case, Section 44 has got to go, not just 44(1). People should have the right to be represented by anyone they choose - if this is the people's will, then their representative need not be an Australian, or even a human for that matter.

After much sanctimonious finger wagging by Electricity Bill and urging the coalition to do the right thing, now that Labor has 5 MPs that have questions about their citizenship, has declared that this has gone too far and should be brushed over.

Lamb's disgraceful display of faux emotion was simply a ploy to engender sympathy for simply putting citizenship renunciation in the too hard basket.

She and Bill both know that if she is referred to the high court her career is toast, and that if she tries to run again, she has fair chance of losing her seat to the LNP.

The question is whether Turnbull will refer her immediately to the HC or let her and Bill stew for a few months until both their credibility is shredded before referring her?

Forgive me for being hopelessly naive, but couldn't Susan Lamb simply go the the Births, Deaths and Marriages mob in Brisbane and ask them to search for her parents' marriage certificate in their Register of Marriages ? Surely she knows roughly when they were married ? What data would be on an actual certificate that wouldn't be transposed to a Register of Marriages ? Five minutes and ten dollars' search fee ?

Joe

Lamb is the one who is hopelessly naive, Joe. Or, perhaps, she is just another political rat of the outhouse variety.

Obviously Lamb knows the answer perfectly well, but is wriggling like a worm to avoid the obvious truth.

I see that Susan Lamb has now been referred to the parliamentary conduct committee for lying to parliament by saying that she'd tried to contact her mother and failed and it is clear that she remained in contact with her mother but never bothered to ask her for her marriage certificate.

LM,

SL can ask for her birth certificate, but not documents on other people without their permission unless they are dead.

Hi SM,

Well, her dad's no longer with us, so that should, forgive me, make it easier for her. [What a horrible thing to write].

The Registry is at Level 32, 180 Ann Street, Brisbane. Opening hours are Monday–Friday: 8.30am–4.30pm.

She could try using this form:

https://publications.qld.gov.au/dataset/marriage-certificate-extract application/resource/bfc99568-8085-4eb8-8aa5-6ce3173985e1

But probably someone's told her all that already.

Joe