Government approves Santos Barossa pipeline and sea dumping

The Australia Institute Media Release   Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s Department has approved a…

If The Jackboots Actually Fit …

By Jane Salmon   If The Jackboots Actually Fit … Why Does Labor Keep…

Distinctions Without Difference: The Security Council on Gaza…

The UN Security Council presents one of the great contradictions of power…

How the supermarkets lost their way in Oz

By Callen Sorensen Karklis   Many Australians are heard saying that they’re feeling the…

Purgatorial Torments: Assange and the UK High Court

What is it about British justice that has a certain rankness to…

Why A Punch In The Face May Be…

Now I'm not one who believes in violence as a solution to…

Does God condone genocide?

By Bert Hetebry Stan Grant points out in his book The Queen is…

As Yemen enters tenth year of war, militarisation…

Oxfam Australia Media Release   As Yemen enters its tenth year of war, its…

«
»
Facebook

We’re all done with Dual citizenship : especially when it’s the Liberal party

Super Saturday is largely about dual-citizenship and the Labor party. Why do you think that is, why are no Liberal politicians being challenged over their citizenship ? Well, clearly that is a rhetorical question as we all know that Liberal parliamentarians are chosen form on-high : born to rule dont’cha know.

Lucy Gichuhi, the Kenyan senator is however an interesting case study having originally been elected to represent Family First and then been encouraged to jump ship to the Liberals who, through their SA branch pre-selection process have now given her the potentially unwinnable fourth place on their Senate ticket.

Whilst Turnbull came out strongly to support Ann Sudmalis, representing the Division of Gilmore in New South Wales, who was also being challenged for pre-selection, he has been noticeably silent when it comes to Gichuhi which is quite surprising when you consider that she brings to the Liberals two things they lack : ethnic diversity and that she is a woman.

Perhaps the answer lies in the ongoing dual-citizenship debacle. Gichuhi considers that she automatically lost her Kenyan citizenship when she became an Australian citizen in 2001. However, it seems that in this she may have been mistaken following comments recently from the University of Nairobi professor Edwin Abuya, a constitutional expert who says Gichuhi should have formally applied to Kenya’s nationality affairs minister to renounce her Kenyan citizenship when seeking sole Australian citizenship.

Simon Birmingham tried to muddy the waters by saying that the high court had deemed Gichuhi as eligible to replace Bob Day as a South Australian senator in the federal parliament when the Family First senator resigned after a constitutional breach concerning the lease of his Adelaide office. Certainly the high court were satisfied that Gichuhi had been properly chosen to enter the senate but they were not asked to make a determination on her citizenship and the high court only ever answers the questions they are asked and Turnbull doesn’t want this question asked.

When the SA Branch of the Liberal party gave Gichuhi the fourth and potentially unwinnable position on their senate ticket for the next election you could have anticipated that Turnbull would come out strongly to support her but that has not been the case. It now seems that the possibility of another dual citizenship debacle is too great a price to pay for the Liberal party, evidently outweighing the much needed diversity she brings to a party who desperately need representation from people of her gender and ethnicity.

Personally I believe that Lucy Gichuhi has much more to offer our parliament and the Liberal party than the likes of Georgina Downer but it doesn’t seem that the SA branch of the Liberal party see it that way and Turnbull will not discuss dual citizenship anymore : he’s moved on.

 

Like what we do at The AIMN?

You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.

Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!

Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.

You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969

Donate Button

12 comments

Login here Register here
  1. ajogrady

    It would seem that the Australian and British conservative parties conspired to make it as difficult as possible for Labor’s Susan Lamb when compared with the documented ease of Liberals John Alexander.

  2. wam

    Sad that the pollies of all persuasion are political
    Sadder that liberal party lawyers could decide that dad’s accident of birth over rules born in Australia
    none of us can deny lamb was a dual citizen
    she couldn’t have done a nigel run to london because, unlike scullion she was australian born
    I hope her story has been told in public at every opportunity
    good luck labor
    goodluck billy and tania
    heard albo tell one of the autocue women that labor wouldn’t give $60 billion to the richest companies and their shareholders. Then she said I don’t know how labor will pay for its promises??
    no matter what happens, albo, this is not your time.

  3. New England Cocky

    @ajpogrady: I am still unconvinced that Toxic RAbbott was only an Australian citizen when he was elected to the Australian House of Reps, given the close links you mention above, and the joint advertising partner on whom the English Conservatives conferred an English knighthood.

    But then again, as a ten pound Pom escaping unreconstructed 1950s England for the economic opportunities of a sunny Australia, Abbott is technically a “boat person and economic migrant”, presently the butt of Benito Dutton’s fascist inhumane policies.

    @wam: Perhaps the ill-informed MSM kiddie scribblers will search the ALP Rules and … guess what? … discover that there can be no challenge for the leadership until AFTER the LNP misgovernment loses the 2018 Federal election, when, with Shorten as a winner, it would be very difficult for the ALP to dispatch him … for any other candidate.

  4. wam

    Gday, want a cracker,
    The fact of an albo challenge is like the fact that the lnp is a bigger borrower, bigger spender and better at wasting money than labor true if repeated. The former is repeatable the latter is hidden.
    A word from albo releases free labor bashing through the lemon’s ego during his second coming.

  5. corvus boreus

    wam,
    The very same factors that serve to convince me of the eminent suitability of Anthony Albanese to lead the ALP (a combination of a comparatively solid reputation for personal integrity and an obvious pragmatic, practical intelligence) are the same basic reasons why I reckon the widespread recent media speculations over a ‘ Labor leadership crisis’ are a confected crock of proverbial.
    Labor are not going to change captain/coach this close to the big game.

  6. Matters Not

    So the results of the Super Saturday by-elections are in (almost) and the political waters are again without a perceptible ripple. The swings against Turnbull and towards Shorten (if one wants to define the political contest in those terms) are within the normal range. Predictable and predicted by some while the Murdoch Press, as always, had more positions than the Kamasutra. Like any good politician, the Murdoch Press always builds their backdoor first.

    So Shorten survives. – no longer threatened by an Albo challenge – while Turnbull’s wet dream of an early election accompanied by a lay down misere also meets a sticky end.

    Such is life.

  7. corvus boreus

    Matters Not,
    So a hand-full of by-elections didn’t immediately cause a seismic shift in the directional fate of this nation?
    I guess at least that means all the different party-shills and affiliate-firm hack-trolls can take a few weeks off.
    That should help temporarily ease the general fecal buildup (both soy-bean and red-meat) in the informational pipelines.

  8. paul walter

    NOW we are done with dual citizenship, after the damage it has done.

    The most fruitless event in Australian history and something that must have had even the most primitive nations offshore rolling on the floor with laughter.

  9. Rod Stebbing

    Let’s hear from the Prime Minister… MALCOLM…. MAAAAALCOM… MAAAAAAAAALCOM.
    Nah, doesn’t look as if he has anything to add. Probably tucked up in bed by now.
    Goodnight.

  10. Kronomex

    And this bit of complete fantasy after yesterdays by-elections from one of the LNP pollies (I almost ckoked from laughing on my fresh brewed coffe as I read it) –

    “But Liberal MP Trent Zimmerman was in a more positive mood. “It’s been a good night for the government. The performance has improved. The momentum continues to happen,” he told the ABC.”

    https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/super-saturday-by-election-results/news-story/2d7d59da91893bd935e21075faffc697

    Words in brackets are mine. ““It’s been a good (shit) night for the government. The (horrendous)performance has (worsened) improved. The (downward to destruction) momentum continues to happen,” he (didn’t tell) told the ABC.”

    I believe Murdoch (blows raspberry at The Rupert) will start agitating for the removal of Trembles as soon as possible.

  11. John Adams

    I would like to see what the HC thinks of these suspect dual citizens?
    Marino, Banks, Ciobo, Falinski, Sudmalis, Keenan, Morton, Sukkar, Frydenberg Hawke Arthur Sinodinos and turnball,.abbott

  12. etnorb

    Mow, Mrs Gichuhi may well be a “suitable” candidate for the bloody Libs. but she is the one who openly stated that she finds it hard to live on $200,000 a year (??) & she has had far too many plane trips in & around Australia, that she has claimed as “parliament business”, when they were mainly used to provide her family with free holidays! Bugger! Of course Talkbull will conveniently overlook her dual citizenship status! Well he would have to because she is not in the Labor party!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 2 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Return to home page