Federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton is fearful of a “race to the bottom” in Canberra where citizenship has become a dirty word.
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The House of Representatives’ Deputy Speaker suspects “people are trolling through everyone’s background trying to find out where they came from”.
The politician has put on the public record his birth at the former Crown Street Women’s Hospital in Sydney.
“My mother was born in Gunnedah hospital and my father, I believe, at Warialda,” he said.
Mr Coulton spoke to the Daily Liberal the day after it was revealed Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce had joined four other politicians waiting on the High Court of Australia to decide if they must vacate their seats.
The Member for New England has been named a New Zealand citizen “by descent”. The Australian Constitution prohibits politicians from having dual citizenship.
On Tuesday, amid reports that the one-seat-majority Coalition government planned to challenge the election of five Australian Labor Party (ALP) politicians, Mr Coulton suggested the ALP had been helped by its New Zealand counterpart in trying to “bring down the Australian government”.
He said any by-election would “probably mean a general election”. “The Parliament needs to have that majority to operate,” Mr Coulton said.
The politician also noted Senator Nick Xenophon’s push for an independent audit of all parliamentarians as to their eligibility to be elected. “He must have checked his out,” Mr Coulton said.
Mr Coulton said the saga would ensure future wannabe politicians were rigorous in meeting citizenship requirements but it would not help improve the public’s poor perception of politicians in Canberra.
