Bill Shorten under fire – insisted no dual citizens in his party for 10 months
Labor leader Bill Shorten has failed to apologise after incorrectly claiming that no Labor politicians could be dual citizens because of the party’s strict vetting process.
On Wednesday, the High Court ruled Labor Senator Katy Gallagher was ineligible to sit in Parliament because she had not renounced her British citizenship by the 2016 federal election.
The ruling sparked the prompt resignation of four other politicians – Labor MPs Justine Keay, Josh Wilson and Susan Lamb, and crossbencher Rebekha Sharkie.
Next month, they all plan to recontest their seats in a by-election, reported The Daily Telegraph.
The Liberal Party will contest Ms Keay’s Tasmanian seat of Braddon, Ms Lamb’s Queensland seat of Longman and Ms Sharkie’s South Australian seat of Mayo – which are all marginal and were recently held by the Liberals.
For 10 months, Mr Shorten repeatedly claimed none of his MPs were dual citizens because of Labor’s vigorous vetting process for political candidates.
“We have a strict vetting process. There is no cloud over any of our people, let’s be straight here,” he said in August.
When Mr Shorten was later questioned about a Labor politician’s potential foreign citizenship, he repeated the claim.
In August, Mr Shorten rejected Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s request to refer all politicians with questionable citizenship status to the High Court.
He agreed that it was “manifestly in the national interest” for the High Court to determine eligibility but said: “The Labor Party has the strictest processes in place to ensure all candidates are compliant with the Constitution prior to their nomination for election. Therefore, I politely decline your offer.”
Yesterday, Mr Shorten offered no apology for the error of judgement but blamed the ALP’s lawyers and said the High Court had set a new precedent.
“At all times the Labor Party has acted in good faith. I have relied upon the legal advice provided to me by the Labor Party,” he said.