And there we have it folks: Barnaby Joyce is a dual citizen with the same kiwi heritage that undid Greens Senator Scott Ludlam.
Kiwi authorities confirmed the news after receiving multiple inquiries from Fairfax Media last week, according to New Zeland Internal Affairs Minster Peter Dunne.
Crown Law determined Mr Joyce to be one of them based on the fact that anyone born to a New Zealander father between 1949 and 1978 is also considered to be a citizen through descent – the deputy PM is born in 1967.
The deputy prime minster shockingly announced this morning that he would be referring himself to the High Court over his eligibility to sit in Parliament after it was brought to his attention he may hold NZ citizenship.
WATCH: Barnaby Joyce surprises Parliament with the announcement.
“I’ve always been an Australian citizen, born in Tamworth, just as my mother and my great-grandmother were born there 100 years earlier,” he told the House of Representatives this morning.
“Neither I, nor my parents, have ever had any reason to believe that I may be a citizen of any other country.”
However, Mr Joyce’s father was born in New Zealand and the New Zealand High Commission had contacted him to let him know he’s a citizen by descent.
Despite the confirmation, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has asked the deputy PM not to stand aside from his ministerial or leadership responsibilities after advice from the Solicitor General that the information would not disqualify him from serving as the Member for New England.
Prior suggestions that Mr Joyce held dual citizenship had been quickly dismissed as “laughable” by the politician.
This is the latest in a surprisingly high amount of MPs to be caught out in a section of the constitution many of the public didn’t even know existed.
Of the four, possibly five, MPs recently found to hold dual citizenship, only the two Greens senators completely resigned.
When Larissa Waters and Scott Ludlam were caught out by section 44 of the constitution, Malcolm Turnbull criticised them of “incredible sloppiness”.
