Family Ties: Knowable Australia and Government Lawmakers

family ties: But the court said the lawmakers' foreign family ties were knowable, according to CBC. Australia, New Zealand locked in odd political feud The seven judges rejected the government's argument that five of the lawmakers including three government lawmakers should be exempt from the ban because they had not voluntarily acquired or retained citizenship of another country. Critics have condemned as outdated the 116-year-old constitutional ban on a subject or citizen of a foreign power standing for Parliament in a country where almost half the people are immigrants or have an overseas-born parent. While the judges said it may be harsh to disqualify Australian-born candidates who had no reasons to believe they were not exclusively Australian, those facts must always have been knowable. The decision to disqualify deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce means a byelection will be held for his rural electoral district on Dec. 2, the earliest possible date. Single-seat majority The judges also pointed to the difficulties of proving or disproving a person's state of mind and the regrettable possibility of a want of candor if ignorance of dual citizenship was recognized as an excuse. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.